Chapter IV: Part 4

Louisa was very imaginative, telling stories to her sisters and her mates, and at sixteen wrote a book for Miss Ellen Emerson, entitled _Flower Fables_. It was not published till six years later, and then, being florid in style, did not bring her any fame. She was now anxious to earn her support. She was not the person to sit down idly and wait for marriage, or for some rich relation to care for her; but she determined to make a place in the world for herself. She says in _Little Women_, "Jo's ambition was to do something very splendid; what it was she had no idea, as yet, but left it for time to tell her," and at sixteen the time had come to make the attempt.

She began to teach school with twenty pupils. Instead of the theological talks which her father gave his scholars, she told them stories, which she says made the one pleasant hour in her school-day. Now the long years of work had begun--fifteen of them--which should give the girl such rich yet sometimes bitter experiences, that she could write the most fascinating books from her own history. Into her volume called _Work_, published when she had become famous, she put many of her own early sorrows in those of "Christie."

Much of this time was spent in Boston. Sometimes she cared for an invalid child; sometimes she was a governess; sometimes she did sewing, adding to her slender means by writing late at night. Occasionally she went to the house of Rev. Theodore Parker, where she met Emerson, Sumner, Garrison, and Julia Ward Howe. Emerson always had a kind word for the girl whom he had known in Concord, and Mr. Parker would take her by the hand and say, "How goes it, my child? God bless you; keep your heart up, Louisa," and then she would go home to her lonely room, brave and encouraged.

At nineteen, one of her early stories was published in _Gleason's Pictorial_, and for this she received five dollars. How welcome was this brain-money! Some months later she sent a story to the _Boston Saturday Gazette_, entitled _The Rival Prima Donnas_, and, to her great delight, received ten dollars; and what was almost better still, a request from the editor for another story. Miss Alcott made the _Rival Prima Donnas_ into a drama, and it was accepted by a theatre, and would have been put upon the stage but for some disagreement among the actors. However, the young teacher received for her work a pass to the theatre for forty nights. She even meditated going upon the stage, but the manager quite opportunely broke his leg, and the contract was annulled. What would the boys and girls of America have lost, had their favorite turned actress!

A second story was, of course, written for the _Saturday Evening Gazette_. And now Louisa was catching a glimpse of fame. She says, "One of the memorial moments of my life is that in which, as I trudged to school on a wintry day, my eye fell upon a large yellow poster with these delicious words, '_Bertha_, a new tale by the author of _The Rival Prima Donnas_, will appear in the _Saturday Evening Gazette_.' I was late; it was bitter cold; people jostled me; I was mortally afraid I should be recognized; but there I stood, feasting my eyes on the fascinating poster, and saying proudly to myself, in the words of the great Vincent Crummles, 'This, this is fame!' That day my pupils had an indulgent teacher; for, while they struggled with their pot-hooks, I was writing immortal works; and when they droned out the multiplication table, I was counting up the noble fortune my pen was to earn for me in the dim, delightful future. That afternoon my sisters made a pilgrimage to behold this famous placard, and finding it torn by the wind, boldly stole it, and came home to wave it like a triumphal banner in the bosom of the excited family. The tattered paper still exists, folded away with other relics of those early days, so hard and yet so sweet, when the first small victories were won, and the enthusiasm of youth lent romance to life's drudgery."

Finding that there was money in sensational stories, she set herself eagerly to work, and soon could write ten or twelve a month. She says in _Little Women:_ "As long as _The Spread Eagle_ paid her a dollar a column for her 'rubbish,' as she called it, Jo felt herself a woman of means, and spun her little romances diligently. But great plans fermented in her busy brain and ambitious mind, and the old tin kitchen in the garret held a slowly increasing pile of blotted manuscript, which was one day to place the name of March upon the roll of fame."

But sensational stories did not bring much fame, and the conscientious Louisa tired of them. A novel, _Moods_, written at eighteen, shared nearly the same fate as _Flower Fables_. Some critics praised, some condemned, but the great world was indifferent. After this, she offered a story to Mr. James T. Fields, at that time editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, but it was declined, with the kindly advice that she stick to her teaching. But Louisa Alcott had a strong will and a brave heart, and would not be overcome by obstacles.

The Civil War had begun, and the school-teacher's heart was deeply moved. She was now thirty, having had such experience as makes us very tender toward suffering. The perfume of natures does not usually come forth without bruising. She determined to go to Washington and offer herself as a nurse at the hospital for soldiers. After much official red tape, she found herself in the midst of scores of maimed and dying, just brought from the defeat at Fredericksburg. She says: "Round the great stove was gathered the dreariest group I ever saw,--ragged, gaunt, and pale, mud to the knees, with bloody bandages untouched since put on days before; many bundled up in blankets, coats being lost or useless, and all wearing that disheartened look which proclaimed defeat more plainly than any telegram, of the Burnside blunder. I pitied them so much, I dared not speak to them. I yearned to serve the dreariest of them all.

"Presently there came an order, 'Tell them to take off socks, coats, and shirts; scrub them well, put on clean shirts, and the attendants will finish them off, and lay them in bed.'

"I chanced to light on a withered old Irishman," she says, "wounded in the head, which caused that portion of his frame to be tastefully laid out like a garden, the bandages being the walks, and his hair the shrubbery. He was so overpowered by the honor of having a lady wash him, as he expressed it, that he did nothing but roll up his eyes and bless me, in an irresistible style which was too much for my sense of the ludicrous, so we laughed together; and when I knelt down to take off his shoes, he wouldn't hear of my touching 'them dirty craters.' Some of them took the performance like sleepy children, leaning their tired heads against me as I worked; others looked grimly scandalized, and several of the roughest colored like bashful girls."

When food was brought, she fed one of the badly wounded men, and offered the same help to his neighbor. "Thank you, ma'am," he said, "I don't think I'll ever eat again, for I'm shot in the stomach. But I'd like a drink of water, if you ain't too busy."

"I rushed away," she says; "but the water pails were gone to be refilled, and it was some time before they reappeared. I did not forget my patient, meanwhile, and, with the first mugful, hurried back to him. He seemed asleep; but something in the tired white face caused me to listen at his lips for a breath. None came. I touched his forehead; it was cold; and then I knew that, while he waited, a better nurse than I had given him a cooler draught, and healed him with a touch. I laid the sheet over the quiet sleeper, whom no noise could now disturb; and, half an hour later, the bed was empty."

With cheerful face and warm heart she went among the soldiers, now writing letters, now washing faces, and now singing lullabies. One day a tall, manly fellow was brought in. He seldom spoke, and uttered no complaint. After a little, when his wounds were being dressed, Miss Alcott observed the big tears roll down his cheeks and drop on the floor.

She says: "My heart opened wide and took him in, as, gathering the bent head in my arms, as freely as if he had been a child, I said, 'Let me help you bear it, John!' Never on any human countenance have I seen so swift and beautiful a look of gratitude, surprise, and comfort as that which answered me more eloquently than the whispered--

"'Thank you, ma'am; this is right good! this is what I wanted.'

"'Then why not ask for it before?'

"'I didn't like to be a trouble, you seemed so busy, and I could manage to get on alone.'"

The doctors had told Miss Alcott that John must die, and she must take the message to him; but she had not the heart to do it. One evening he asked her to write a letter for him. "Shall it be addressed to wife or mother, John?"

"Neither, ma'am; I've got no wife, and will write to mother myself when I get better. Mother's a widow; I'm the oldest child she has, and it wouldn't do for me to marry until Lizzy has a home of her own, and Jack's learned his trade; for we're not rich, and I must be father to the children and husband to the dear old woman, if I can."

"No doubt you are both, John; yet how came you to go to war, if you felt so?"

"I went because I couldn't help it. I didn't want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done, and people kept saying the men who were in earnest ought to fight. I was in earnest, the Lord knows! but I held off as long as I could, not knowing which was my duty. Mother saw the case, gave me her ring to keep me steady, and said 'Go'; so I went."

"Do you ever regret that you came, when you lie here suffering so much?"

"Never, ma'am; I haven't helped a great deal, but I've shown I was willing to give my life, and perhaps I've got to.... This is my first battle; do they think it's going to be my last?"

"I'm afraid they do, John."

He seemed startled at first, but desired Miss Alcott to write the letter to Jack, because he could best tell the sad news to the mother. With a sigh, John said, "I hope the answer will come in time for me to see it."

Two days later Miss Alcott was sent for. John stretched out both hands as he said, "I knew you'd come. I guess I'm moving on, ma'am." Then clasping her hand so close that the death marks remained long upon it, he slept the final sleep. An hour later John's letter came, and putting it in his hand, Miss Alcott kissed the dead brow of the Virginia blacksmith, for his aged mother's sake, and buried him in the government lot.

The noble teacher after a while became ill from overwork, and was obliged to return home, soon writing her book, _Hospital Sketches_, published in 1865. This year, needing rest and change, she went to Europe as companion to an invalid lady, spending a year in Germany, Switzerland, Paris, and London. In the latter city she met Jean Ingelow, Frances Power Cobbe, John Stuart Mill, George Lewes, and others, who had known of the brilliant Concord coterie. Such persons did not ask if Miss Alcott were rich, nor did they care.

In 1868 her father took several of her more recent stories to Roberts Brothers to see about their publication in book form. Mr. Thomas Niles, a member of the firm, a man of refinement and good judgment, said: "We do not care just now for volumes of collected stories. Will not your daughter write us a new book consisting of a single story for girls?"

Miss Alcott feared she could not do it, and set herself to write _Little Women_, to show the publishers that she could _not_ write a story for girls. But she did not succeed in convincing them or the world of her inability. In two months the first part was finished, and published October, 1868. It was a natural, graphic story of her three sisters and herself in that simple Concord home. How we, who are grown-up children, read with interest about the "Lawrence boy," especially if we had boys of our own, and sympathized with the little girl who wrote Miss Alcott, "I have cried quarts over Beth's sickness. If you don't have her marry Laurie in the second part, I shall never forgive you, and none of the girls in our school will ever read any more of your books. Do! do! have her, please."

The second part appeared in April, 1869, and Miss Alcott found herself famous. The "pile of blotted manuscript" had "placed the name of March upon the roll of fame." Some of us could not be reconciled to dear Jo's marriage with the German professor, and their school at Plumfield, when Laurie loved her so tenderly. "We cried over Beth, and felt how strangely like most young housekeepers was Meg. How the tired teacher, and tender-hearted nurse for the soldiers must have rejoiced at her success! "This year," she wrote her publishers, "after toiling so many years along the uphill road, always a hard one to women writers, it is peculiarly grateful to me to find the way growing easier at last, with pleasant little surprises blossoming on either side, and the rough places made smooth."

When _Little Men_ was announced, fifty thousand copies were ordered in advance of its publication! About this time Miss Alcott visited Rome with her artist sister May, the "Amy" of _Little Women_, and on her return, wrote _Shawl-straps_, a bright sketch of their journey, followed by an _Old-Fashioned Girl_; that charming book _Under the Lilacs_, where your heart goes out to Ben and his dog Sancho; six volumes of _Aunt Jo's Scrap-bag_; _Jack and Jill_; and others. From these books Miss Alcott has already received about one hundred thousand dollars.

She has ever been the most devoted of daughters. Till the mother went out of life, in 1877, she provided for her every want. May, the gifted youngest sister, who was married in Paris in 1878 to Ernst Nieriker, died a year and a half later, leaving her infant daughter, Louisa May Nieriker, to Miss Alcott's loving care. The father, who became paralyzed in 1882, now eighty-six years old, has had her constant ministries. How proud he has been of his Louisa! I heard him say, years ago, "I am riding in her golden chariot."

Miss Alcott now divides her time between Boston and Concord. "The Orchards," the Alcott home for twenty-five years, set in its frame of grand trees, its walls and doors daintily covered with May Alcott's sketches, has become the home of the "Summer School of Philosophy," and Miss Alcott and her father live in the house where Thoreau died.

Most of her stories have been written in Boston, where she finds more inspiration than at Concord. "She never had a study," says Mrs. Moulton; "any corner will answer to write in. She is not particular as to pens and paper, and an old atlas on her knee is all the desk she cares for. She has the wonderful power to carry a dozen plots in her head at a time, thinking them over whenever she is in the mood. Often in the dead waste and middle of the night she lies awake and plans whole chapters. In her hardest working days she used to write fourteen hours in the twenty-four, sitting steadily at her work, and scarcely tasting food till her daily task was done. When she has a story to write, she goes to Boston, hires a quiet room, and shuts herself up in it. In a month or so the book will be done, and its author comes out 'tired, hungry, and cross,' and ready to go back to Concord and vegetate for a time."

Miss Alcott, like Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, is an earnest advocate of woman's suffrage, and temperance. When Meg in _Little Women_ prevails upon Laurie to take the pledge on her wedding-day, the delighted Jo beams her approval. In 1883 she writes of the suffrage reform, "Every year gives me greater faith in it, greater hope of its success, a larger charity for those who cannot see its wisdom, and a more earnest wish to use what influence I possess for its advancement."

Miss Alcott has done a noble work for her generation. Her books have been translated into foreign languages, and expressions of affection have come to her from both east and west. She says, "As I turn my face toward sunset, I find so much to make the down-hill journey smooth and lovely, that, like Christian, I go on my way rejoicing with a cheerful heart."

* * * * *

Miss Alcott died March 6, 1888, at the age of fifty-five, three days after the death of her distinguished father, Bronson Alcott, eighty-eight years old. She had been ill for some months, from care and overwork. On the Saturday morning before she died, she wrote to a friend: "I am told that I must spend another year in this 'Saint's Rest,' and then I am promised twenty years of health. I don't want so many, and I have no idea I shall see them. But as I don't live for myself, I will live on for others."

On the evening of the same day she became unconscious, and remained so till her death, on Tuesday morning.

MARY LYON.

There are two women whose memory the girls in this country should especially revere,--Mary Lyon and Catharine Beecher. When it was unfashionable for women to know more than to read, write, and cipher (the "three R's," as reading, writing, and arithmetic were called), these two had the courage to ask that women have an education equal to men, a thing which was laughed at as impracticable and impossible. To these two pioneers we are greatly indebted for the grand educational advantages for women to-day in America.

Amid the mountains of Western Massachusetts, at Buckland, Feb. 28, 1797, the fifth of seven children, Mary Lyon came into the world, in obscurity. The little farm-house was but one story high, in the midst of rocks and sturdy trees. The father, Aaron Lyon, was a godly man, beloved by all his neighbors,--"the peacemaker," he was called,--who died at forty-five, leaving his little family well-nigh helpless--no, not helpless, because the mother was of the same material of which Eliza Garfields are made.

Such women are above circumstances. She saw to it that the farm yielded its best. She worked early and late, always cheerful, always observing the Sabbath most devotedly, always keeping the children clean and tidy. In her little garden the May pinks were the sweetest and the peonies the reddest of any in the neighborhood. One person begged to set a plant in the corner of her garden, sure that if Mrs. Lyon tended it, it could never die. "How is it," said the hard-working wife of a farmer, "that the widow can do more for me than any one else?" She had her trials, but she saw no use in telling them to others, so with a brave heart she took up her daily tasks and performed them.

Little Mary was an energetic, frank, warm-hearted child, full of desire to help others. Her mind was eager in grasping new things, and curious in its investigations. Once, when her mother had given her some work to do, she climbed upon a chair to look at the hour-glass, and said, as she studied it, "I know I have found a way to _make more time_."

At the village school she showed a remarkable memory and the power of committing lessons easily. She was especially good in mathematics and grammar. In four days she learned all of Alexander's Grammar, which scholars were accustomed to commit, and recited it accurately to the astonished teacher.

When Mary was thirteen, the mother married a second time, and soon after removed to Ohio. The girl remained at the old homestead, keeping house for the only brother, and so well did she do the work, that he gave her a dollar a week for her services. This she used in buying books and clothes for school. Besides, she found opportunities to spin and weave for some of the neighbors, and thus added a little more to her purse.

After five years, the brother married and sought a home in New York State. Mary, thus thrown upon herself, began to teach school for seventy-five cents a week and her board. This amount would not buy many silks or embroideries, but Mary did not care much for these. "She is all intellect," said a friend who knew her well; "she does not know that she has a body to care for."

She had now saved enough money to enable her to spend one term at the Sanderson Academy at Ashfield. What an important event in life that seemed to the struggling country girl! The scholars watched her bright, intellectual face, and when she began to recite, laid aside their books to hear her. The teacher said, "I should like to see what she would make if she could be sent to college." When the term ended, her little savings were all spent, and now she must teach again. If she only could go forward with her classmates! but the laws of poverty are inexorable. Just as she was leaving the school, the trustees came and offered the advantages of the academy free, for another term. Did ever such a gleam of sunshine come into a cloudy day?

But how could she pay her board? She owned a, bed and some table linen, and taking these to a boarding house, a bargain was made whereby she could have a room and board in exchange for her household articles.

Her red-letter days had indeed come. She might never have a chance for schooling again; so, without regard to health, she slept only four hours out of the twenty-four, ate her meals hurriedly, and gave all her time to her lessons. Not a scholar in the school could keep up with her. When the teacher gave her Adams' _Latin Grammar_, telling her to commit such portions as were usual in going over the book the first time, she learned them all in three days!

When the term closed, she had no difficulty in finding a place to teach. All the towns around had heard of the surprising scholar, Mary Lyon, and probably hoped she could inspire the same scholarship in her pupils, a matter in which she was most successful.

As soon as her schools were finished, she would spend the money in obtaining instruction in some particular study, in which she thought herself deficient. Now she would go into the family of Rev. Edward Hitchcock, afterward president of Amherst College, and study natural science of him, meantime taking lessons, of his wife in drawing and painting. Now she would study penmanship, following the copy as closely as a child. Once when a teacher, in deference to her reputation, wrote the copy in Latin, she handed it back and asked him to write in English, lest when the books were examined, she might be thought wiser than she really was. Thus conscientious was the young school-teacher.

She was now twenty-four, and had laid up enough money to attend the school of Rev. Joseph Emerson, at Byfield. He was an unusual man in his gifts of teaching and broad views of life. He had been blest with a wife of splendid talents, and as Miss Lyon was wont to say, "Men judge of the whole sex by their own wives," so Mr. Emerson believed women could understand metaphysics and theology as well as men. He discussed science and religion with his pupils, and the result was a class of self-respecting, self-reliant, thinking women.

Miss Lyon's friends discouraged her going to Byfield, because they thought she knew enough already. "Why," said they, "you will never be a minister, and what is the need of going to school?" She improved her time here. One of her classmates wrote home, "Mary sends love to all; but time with her is too precious to spend it in writing letters. She is gaining knowledge by handfuls."

The next year, an assistant was wanted in the Sanderson Academy. The principal thought a man must be engaged. "Try Mary Lyon," said one of her friends, "and see if she is not sufficient," and he employed her, and found her a host. But she could not long be retained, for she was wanted in a larger field, at Derry, N.H. Miss Grant, one of the teachers at Mr. Emerson's school, had sent for her former bright pupil. Mary was glad to be associated with Miss Grant, for she was very fond of her; but before going, she must attend some lectures in chemistry and natural history by Professor Eaton at Amherst. Had she been a young man, how easily could she have secured a scholarship, and thus worked her way through college; but for a young woman, neither Amherst, nor Dartmouth, nor Williams, nor Harvard, nor Yale, with all their wealth, had an open door. Very fond of chemistry, she could only learn in the spare time which a busy professor could give.

Was the cheerful girl never despondent in these hard working years? Yes; because naturally she was easily discouraged, and would have long fits of weeping; but she came to the conclusion that such seasons of depression were wrong, and that "there was too much to be done, for her to spend her time in that manner." She used to tell her pupils that "if they were unhappy, it was probably because they had so many thoughts about themselves, and so few about the happiness of others." The friend who had recommended her for the Sanderson Academy now became surety for her for forty dollars' worth of clothing, and the earnest young woman started for Derry. The school there numbered ninety pupils, and Mary Lyon was happy. She wrote her mother, "I do not number it among the least of my blessings that I am permitted to _do something_. Surely I ought to be thankful for an active life."

But the Derry school was held only in the summers, so Miss Lyon came back to teach at Ashfield and Buckland, her birthplace, for the winters. The first season she had twenty-five scholars; the last, one hundred. The families in the neighborhood took the students into their homes to board, charging them one dollar or one dollar and twenty-five cents per week, while the tuition was twenty-five cents a week. No one would grow very rich on such an income. So popular was Miss Lyon's teaching that a suitable building was erected for her school, and the Ministerial Association passed a resolution of praise, urging her to remain permanently in the western part of Massachusetts.

However, Miss Grant had removed to Ipswich, and had urged Miss Lyon to join her, which she did. For six years they taught a large and most successful school. Miss Lyon was singularly happy in her intercourse with the young ladies. She won them to her views, while they scarcely knew that they were being controlled. She would say to them: "Now, young ladies, you are here at great expense. Your board and tuition cost a great deal, and your time ought to be worth more than both; but, in order to get an equivalent for the money and time you are spending, you must be systematic, and that is impossible, unless you have a regular hour for rising.... Persons who run round all day after the half-hour they lost in the morning never accomplish much. You may know them by a rip in the glove, a string pinned to the bonnet, a shawl left on the balustrade, which they had no time to hang up, they were in such a hurry to catch their lost thirty minutes. You will see them opening their books and trying to study at the time of general exercises in school; but it is a fruitless race; they never will overtake their lost half-hour. Good men, from Abraham to Washington, have been early risers." Again, she would say, "Mind, wherever it is found, will secure respect.... Educate the women, and the men will be educated. Let the ladies understand the great doctrine of seeking the greatest good, of loving their neighbors as themselves; let them indoctrinate their children in this fundamental truth, and we shall have wise legislators."

"You won't do so again, will you, dear?" was almost always sure to win a tender response from a pupil.

She would never allow a scholar to be laughed at. If a teacher spoke jestingly of a scholar's capacity, Miss Lyon would say, "Yes, I know she has a small mind, but we must do the best we can for her."

For nearly sixteen years she had been giving her life to the education of girls. She had saved no money for herself, giving it to her relatives or aiding poor girls in going to school. She was simple in her tastes, the blue cloth dress she generally wore having been spun and woven by herself. A friend tells how, standing before the mirror to tie her bonnet, she said, "Well, I _may_ fail of Heaven, but I shall be very much disappointed if I do--very much disappointed;" and there was no thought of what she was doing with the ribbons.

Miss Lyon was now thirty-three years old. It would be strange indeed if a woman with her bright mind and sunshiny face should not have offers of marriage. One of her best opportunities came, as is often the case, when about thirty, and Miss Lyon could have been made supremely happy by it, but she had in her mind one great purpose, and she felt that she must sacrifice home and love for it. This was the building of a high-grade school or college for women. Had she decided otherwise, there probably would have been no Mount Holyoke Seminary.

She had the tenderest sympathy for poor girls; they were the ones usually most desirous of an education, and they struggled the hardest for it. For them no educational societies were provided, and no scholarships. Could she, who had no money, build "a seminary which should be so moderate in its expenses as to be open to the daughters of farmers and artisans, and to teachers who might be mainly dependent for their support on their own exertions"?

In vain she tried to have the school at Ipswich established permanently by buildings and endowments. In vain she talked with college presidents and learned ministers. Nearly all were indifferent. They could see no need that women should study science or the classics. That women would be happier with knowledge, just as they themselves were made happier by it, seemed never to have occurred to them. That women were soon to do nine-tenths of the teaching in the schools of the country could not be foreseen. Oberlin and Cornell, Vassar and Wellesley, belonged to a golden age as yet undreamed of.

For two years she thought over it, and prayed over it, and when all seemed hopeless, she would walk the floor, and say over and over again, "Commit thy way unto the Lord. He will keep thee. Women _must_ be educated; they _must_ be." Finally a meeting was called in Boston at the same time as one of the religious anniversaries. She wrote to a friend, "Very few were present. The meeting was adjourned; and the adjourned meeting utterly failed. There were not enough present to organize, and there the business, in my view, has come to an end."

Still she carried the burden on her heart. She writes, in 1834, "During the past year my heart has so yearned over the adult female youth in the common walks of life, that it has sometimes seemed as though a fire were shut up in my bones." She conceived the idea of having the young women do the work of the house, partly to lessen expenses, partly to teach them useful things, and also because she says, "Might not this single feature do away much of the prejudice against female education among common people?"

At last the purpose in her heart became so strong that she resigned her position as a teacher, and went from house to house in Ipswich collecting funds. She wrote to her mother, "I hope and trust that this is of the Lord, and that He will prosper it. In this movement I have thought much more constantly, and have felt much more deeply, about doing that which shall be for the honor of Christ, and for the good of souls, than I ever did in any step in my life." She determined to raise her first thousand dollars from women. She talked in her good-natured way with the father or the mother. She asked if they wanted a new shawl or card-table or carpet, if they would not find a way to procure it. Usually they gave five or ten dollars; some, only a half-dollar. So interested did two ladies become that they gave one hundred dollars apiece, and later, when their house was burned, and the man who had their money in charge lost it, they worked with their own hands and earned the two hundred, that their portion might not fail in the great work.

In less than two months she had raised the thousand; but she wrote Miss Grant, "I do not recollect being so fatigued, even to prostration, as I have been for a few weeks past." She often quoted a remark of Dr. Lyman Beecher's, "The wear and tear of what I cannot do is a great deal more than the wear and tear of what I do." When she became quite worn, her habit was to sleep nearly all the time, for two or three days, till nature repaired the system.

She next went to Amherst, where good Dr. Hitchcock felt as deeply interested for girls as for the boys in his college. One January morning, with the thermometer below zero, three or four hours before sunrise, he and Miss Lyon started on the stage for Worcester. Each was wrapped in a buffalo robe, so that the long ride was not unpleasant. A meeting was to be held, and a decision made as to the location of the seminary, which, at last, was actually to be built. After a long conference, South Hadley was chosen, ten miles south of Amherst.

One by one, good men became interested in the matter, and one true-hearted minister became an agent for the raising of funds. Miss Lyon was also untiring in her solicitations. She spoke before ladies' meetings, and visited those in high station and low. So troubled were her friends about this public work for a woman, that they reasoned with her that it was in better taste to stay at home, and let gentlemen do the work.

"What do I that is wrong?" she replied. "I ride in the stage coach or cars without an escort. Other ladies do the same. I visit a family where I have been previously invited, and the minister's wife, or some leading woman, calls the ladies together to see me, and I lay our object before them. Is that wrong? I go with Mr. Hawks [the agent], and call on a gentleman of known liberality, at his own house, and converse with him about our enterprise. What harm is there in that? My heart is sick, my soul is pained, with this empty gentility, this genteel nothingness. I am doing a great work. I cannot come down." Pitiful, that so noble a woman should have been hampered by public opinion. How all this has changed! Now, the world and the church gladly welcome the voice, the hand, and the heart of woman in their philanthropic work.

At last, enough money was raised to begin the enterprise, and the corner-stone of Mount Holyoke Seminary was laid, Oct. 3, 1836. "It was a day of deep interest," writes Mary Lyon. "The stones and brick and mortar speak a language which vibrates through my very soul."

"With thankful heart and busy hands she watched the progress of the work. Every detail was under her careful eye. She said: "Had I a thousand lives, I could sacrifice them all in suffering and hardship, for the sake of Mount Holyoke Seminary. Did I possess the greatest fortune, I could readily relinquish it all, and become poor, and more than poor, if its prosperity should demand it."

Finally, in the autumn of 1837, the seminary was ready for pupils. The main building, four stories high, had been erected. An admirable course of study had been provided. For the forty weeks of the school year, the charges for board and tuition were sixty dollars,--only one dollar and twenty-five cents per week. Miss Lyon's own salary was but two hundred a year and she never would receive anything higher. The accommodations were only for eighty pupils, but one hundred and sixteen came the first year.

While Miss Lyon was heartily loved by her scholars, they yet respected her good discipline. It was against the rules for any one to absent herself from meals without permission to do so. One of the young ladies, not feeling quite as fresh as usual, concluded not to go down stairs at tea time, and to remain silent on the subject. Miss Lyon's quick eye detected her absence. Calling the girl's room-mate to her, she asked, "Is Miss ---- ill?"

"Oh, no," was the reply, "only a little indisposed, and she commissioned me to carry her a cup of tea and cracker."

"Very well, I will see to it."

After supper, the young lady ascended to her room, in the fourth story, found her companion enjoying a glorious sunset, and seating herself beside her, they began an animated conversation. Presently there was a knock. "Come in!" both shouted gleefully, when lo! in walked Mary Lyon, with the tea and cracker. She had come up four flights of stairs; but she said every one was tired at night, and she could as well bring up the supper as anybody. She inquired with great kindness about the young lady's health, who, greatly abashed, had nothing to say. She was ever after present at meal time, unless sick in bed.

The students never forgot Miss Lyon's plain, earnest words. When they entered, they were told that they were expected to do right without formal commands; if not, they better go to some smaller school, where they could receive the peculiar training needed by little girls. She urged loose clothing and thick shoes. "If you will persist in killing yourselves by reckless exposure," she would say, "we are not willing to take the responsibility of the act. We think, by all means, you better go home and die, in the arms of your dear mothers."

Miss Lyon had come to her fiftieth birthday. Her seminary had prospered beyond her fondest hopes. She had raised nearly seventy thousand dollars for her beloved school, and it was out of debt. Nearly two thousand pupils had been at South Hadley, of whom a large number had become missionaries and teachers. Not a single year had passed without a revival, and rarely did a girl leave the institution without professing Christianity.

She said to a friend shortly after this fiftieth birthday: "It was the most solemn day of my life. I devoted it to reflection and prayer. Of my active toils I then took leave. I was certain that before another fifty years should have elapsed, I should wake up amid far different scenes, and far other thoughts would fill my mind, and other employments would engage my attention. I felt it. There seemed to be no ladder between me and the world above. The gates were opened, and I seemed to stand on the threshold. I felt that the evening of my days had come, and that I needed repose."

And the repose came soon. The last of February, 1849, a young lady in the seminary died. Miss Lyon called the girls together and spoke tenderly to them, urging them not to fear death, but to be ready to meet it. She said, "There is nothing in the universe that I am afraid of, but that I shall not know and do all my duty." Beautiful words! carved shortly after on her monument.

A few days later, Mary Lyon lay upon her death-bed. The brain had been congested, and she was often unconscious. In one of her lucid moments, her pastor said, "Christ precious?" Summoning all her energies, she raised both hands, clasped them, and said, "Yes." "Have you trusted Christ too much?" he asked. Seeing that she made an effort to speak, he said, "God can be glorified by silence." An indescribable smile lit up her face, and she was gone.

On the seminary grounds the beloved teacher was buried, her pupils singing about her open grave, "Why do we mourn departing friends?" A beautiful monument of Italian marble, square, and resting upon a granite pedestal, marks the spot. On the west side are the words:--

MARY LYON, THE FOUNDER OF MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, AND FOR TWELVE YEARS ITS PRINCIPAL; A TEACHER FOR THIRTY-FIVE YEARS, AND OF MORE THAN THREE THOUSAND PUPILS. BORN, FEBRUARY 28, 1797; DIED, MARCH 5, 1849.

What a devoted, heroic life! and its results, who can estimate?

Her work has gone steadily on. The seminary grounds now cover twenty-five acres. The main structure has two large wings, while a gymnasium; a library building, with thirteen thousand volumes; the Lyman Williston Hall, with laboratories and art gallery; and the new observatory, with fine telescope, astronomical clock, and other appliances, afford such admirable opportunities for higher education as noble Mary Lyon could hardly have dared to hope for. The property is worth about three hundred thousand dollars. How different from the days when half-dollars were given into Miss Lyon's willing hands! Nearly six thousand students have been educated here, three-fourths of whom have become teachers, and about two hundred foreign missionaries. Many have married ministers, presidents of colleges, and leading men in education and good works.

The board and tuition have become one hundred and seventy-five dollars a year, only enough to cover the cost. The range of study has been constantly increased and elevated to keep pace with the growing demand that women shall be as fully educated as men. Even Miss Lyon, in those early days, looked forward to the needs of the future, by placing in her course of study, Sullivan's _Political Class-Book_, and Wayland's _Political Economy_. The four years' course is solid and thorough, while the optional course in French, German, and Greek is admirable. Eventually, when our preparatory schools are higher, all our colleges for women will have as difficult entrance examinations as Harvard and Yale.

The housework at Mount Holyoke Seminary requires but half an hour each day for each of the two hundred and ninety-seven pupils. Much time is spent wisely in the gymnasium, and in boating on the lake near by. Habits of punctuality, thoroughness, and order are the outcome of life in this institution. An endowment of twenty thousand dollars, called "the Mary Lyon Fund," is now being raised by former students for the Chair of the Principal. Schools like the Lake Erie Seminary at Painesville, Ohio, have grown out of the school at South Hadley. Truly, Mary Lyon was doing a great work, and she could not come down. Between such a life and the ordinary social round there can be no comparison.

The English ivy grows thickly over Miss Lyon's grave, covering it like a mantle, and sending out its wealth of green leaves in the spring. So each year her own handiwork flourishes, sending out into the world its strongest forces, the very foundation of the highest civilization,--educated and Christian wives and mothers.

HARRIET G. HOSMER.

Some years ago, in an art store in Boston, a crowd of persons stood gazing intently upon a famous piece of statuary. The red curtains were drawn aside, and the white marble seemed almost to speak. A group of girls stood together, and looked on in rapt admiration. One of them said, "Just to think that a woman did it!"

"It makes me proud and glad," said another.

"Who is Harriet Hosmer?" said a third. "I wish I knew about her."

And then one of us, who had stolen all the hours she could get from school life to read art books from the Hartford Athenaeum, and kept crude statues, made by herself from chalk and plaster, secreted in her room, told all she had read about the brilliant author of "Zenobia."

The statue was seven feet high, queenly in pose and face, yet delicate and beautiful, with the thoughts which genius had wrought in it. The left arm supported the elegant drapery, while the right hung listlessly by her side, both wrists chained; the captive of the Emperor Aurelian. Since that time, I have looked upon other masterpieces in all the great galleries of Europe, but perhaps none have ever made a stronger impression upon me than "Zenobia," in those early years.

And who was the artist of whom we girls were so proud? Born in Watertown, Mass., Oct. 9, 1830, Harriet Hosmer came into the welcome home of a leading physician, and a delicate mother, who soon died of consumption. Dr. Hosmer had also buried his only child besides Harriet, with the same disease, and he determined that this girl should live in sunshine and air, that he might save her if possible. He used to say, "There is a whole life-time for the education of the mind, but the body develops in a few years; and during that time nothing should be allowed to interfere with its free and healthy growth."

As soon as the child was large enough, she was given a pet dog, which she decked with ribbons and bells. Then, as the Charles River flowed past their house, a boat was provided, and she was allowed to row at will. A Venetian gondola was also built for her, with silver prow and velvet cushions. "Too much spoiling--too much spoiling," said some of the neighbors; but Dr. Hosmer knew that he was keeping his little daughter on the earth instead of heaven.

A gun was now purchased, and the girl became an admirable marksman. Her room was a perfect museum. Here were birds, bats, beetles, snakes, and toads; some dissected, some preserved in spirits, and others stuffed, all gathered and prepared by her own hands. Now she made an inkstand from the egg of a sea-gull and the body of a kingfisher; now she climbed to the top of a tree and brought down a crow's nest. She could walk miles upon miles with no fatigue. She grew up like a boy, which is only another way of saying that she grew up healthy and strong physically. Probably polite society was shocked at Dr. Hosmer's methods. Would that there were many such fathers and mothers, that we might have a vigorous race of women, and consequently, a vigorous race of men!

When Harriet tired of books,--for she was an eager reader,--she found delight in a clay-pit in the garden, where she molded horses and dogs to her heart's content. Unused to restraint, she did not like the first school at which she was placed, the principal, the brother-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing to her father that he "could do nothing with her."

She was then taken to Mrs. Sedgwick, who kept a famous school at Lenox, Berkshire County. She received "happy Hatty," as she was called, with the remark, "I have a reputation for training wild colts, and I will try this one." And the wise woman succeeded. She won Harriet's confidence, not by the ten thousand times repeated "don't," which so many children hear in home and school, till life seems a prison-pen. She let her run wild, guiding her all the time with so much tact, that the girl scarcely knew she was guided at all. Blessed tact! How many thousands of young people are ruined for lack of it!

She remained here three years. Mrs. Sedgwick says, "She was the most difficult pupil to manage I ever had, but I think I never had one in whom I took so deep an interest, and whom I learned to love so well." About this time, not being quite as well as usual, Dr. Hosmer engaged a physician of, large practice to visit his daughter. The busy man could not be regular, which sadly interfered with Harriet's boating and driving. Complaining one day that it spoiled her pleasure, he said, "If I am alive, I will be here," naming the day and hour.

"Then if you are not here, I am to conclude that you are dead," was the reply.

As he did not come, Harriet drove to the newspaper offices in Boston that afternoon, and the next morning the community was startled to read of Dr. ----'s sudden death. Friends hastened to the house, and messages of condolence came pouring in. It is probable that he was more punctual after this.

On Harriet's return from Lenox, she began to take lessons in drawing, modeling, and anatomical studies, in Boston, frequently walking from home and back, a distance of fourteen miles. Feeling the need of a thorough course in anatomy, she applied to the Boston Medical School for admittance, and was refused because of her sex. The Medical College of St. Louis proved itself broader, glad to encourage talent wherever found, and received her.

Professor McDowell, under whom the artists Powers and Clevenger studied anatomy, spared no pains to give her every advantage, while the students were uniformly courteous. "I remember him," says Miss Hosmer, "with great affection and gratitude as being a most thorough and patient teacher, as well as at all times a good, kind friend." In testimony of her appreciation, she cut, from a bust of Professor McDowell by Clevenger, a life-size medallion in marble, now treasured in the college museum.

While in St. Louis she made her home with the family of Wayman Crow, Esq., whose daughter had been her companion at Lenox. This gentleman proved himself a constant and encouraging friend, ordering her first statue from Rome, and helping in a thousand ways a girl who had chosen for herself an unusual work in life.

After completing her studies she made a trip to New Orleans, and then North to the Falls of St. Anthony, smoking the pipe of peace with the chief of the Dakota Indians, exploring lead mines in Dubuque, and scaling a high mountain that was soon after named for her. Did the wealthy girl go alone on these journeys? Yes. As a rule, no harm comes to a young woman who conducts herself with becoming reserve with men. Flirts usually are paid in their own coin.

On her return home, Dr. Hosmer fitted up a studio for his daughter, and her first work was to copy from the antique. Then she cut Canova's "Napoleon" in marble for her father, doing all the work, that he might especially value the gift. Her next statue was an ideal bust of Hesper, "with," said Lydia Maria Child, "the face of a lovely maiden gently falling asleep with the sound of distant music. Her hair is gracefully arranged, and intertwined with capsules of the poppy. A star shines on her forehead, and under her breast lies the crescent moon. The swell of the cheeks and the bust is like pure, young, healthy flesh, and the muscles of the beautiful mouth so delicately cut, it seems like a thing that breathes. She did every stroke of the work with her own small hands, except knocking off the corners of the block of marble. She employed a man to do that; but as he was unused to work for sculptors, she did not venture to have him approach within several inches of the surface she intended to cut. Slight girl as she was, she wielded for eight or ten hours a day a leaden mallet weighing four pounds and a half. Had it not been for the strength and flexibility of muscle acquired by rowing and other athletic exercises, such arduous labor would have been impossible."

After "Hesper" was completed, she said to her father, "I am ready to go to Rome."

"You shall go, my child, this very autumn," was the response.