Part 6 (1/2)
In the sixth month, January 17th, 1840, relief came. As I knelt for her last words, she said: ”Elizabeth?”
I replied, ”She is here, dear mother, what of her?”
Summoning strength she said:
”Let no one separate you!” then looked up and said, ”It is enough,” and breathed no more.
As her spirit rose, it broke the cloud, and the divine presence fell upon me. The room, the world was full of peace. She had been caught up out of the storm; and ”he who endureth unto the end shall be saved.”
By her request, I and a dear friend, Martha Campbell, prepared her body for burial, and we wrapped her in a linen winding-sheet, as the body of Christ was buried--no flowers, no decorations; only stern, solemn Death.
On the last day of father's life he had said to her, ”Mary you are human, and must have faults, but whatever they are I never have seen them.”
She had been his widow seventeen years, and by her desire we opened his grave and laid her body to mingle its dust with his, who had been her only love in the life that now is, and with whom she expected to spend an eternity.
CHAPTER XIII.
”LABOR--SERVICE OR ACT.”--AGE, 25.
Mother's will left everything to trustees, for the use of Elizabeth and myself. She had wished my husband to join her in a suit for the recovery of father's city property, and he refused, but signed a deed with me conveying my interest to her. This claim she also willed to her trustees for my use. He felt himself wronged and became angry, but had one remedy. Being the owner of my person and services, he had a right to wages for the time spent in nursing mother, and would file his claim against her executors.
I do not know why I should have been so utterly overwhelmed by this proposal to execute a law pa.s.sed by Christian legislators for the government of Christian people--a law which had never been questioned by any nation, or state, or church, and was in full force all over the world. Why should the discovery of its existence curdle my blood, stop my heart-beats, and send a rush of burning shame from forehead to finger-tip? Why should I have blushed that my husband was a law-abiding citizen of the freest country in the world? Why blame him for acting in harmony with the canons of every Christian church--aye, of that one of which I was a member, and proud of its history as a bulwark of civil liberty? Was it any fault of his that ”all that she (the wife) can acquire by her labor-service or act during coverture, belongs to her husband?” Certainly not. Yet that law made me shrink and think of mother's warning, given so long ago. But marriage was a life-contract, and G.o.d required me to keep it to the end, and said, ”When thou pa.s.seth through the fire I will be with thee, and the floods shall not overflow thee.” I could not bear to have a bill sent to mother's executors for my wages, but I could compromise, and I did.
He returned to Louisville, sold the goods, went on a trading-boat, and joined Samuel in Little Rock. While he was there Samuel died--died a Presbyterian, and left this message for me:
”Tell sister Jane I will meet her in heaven.”
This my husband transmitted to me, and was deeply grieved and much softened by his brother's death.
Rev. Isaiah Niblock, of Butler, Pa., a distant relative and very near friend, asked me to take charge of the Butler Seminary and become his guest. My salary would be twenty-five dollars a month, and this was munificent. Elizabeth went to Pittsburg to school, and I to Butler, where my success was complete and I very happy. Among my pupils were two daughters of my old patron, Judge Braden. One of these, little Nannie, was full of pleasant surprises, and ”brought down the house” during examination, by reciting a country girl's account of her presentation at court, in which occurs this stanza:
”And there the King and I were standing Face and face together; I said, 'How is your Majesty?
It's mighty pleasant weather!'”
By Nannie's way of giving the lines, they were so fixed on my memory as to be often mingled with solemn reveries in after years.
Pet.i.tions were presented in the Pennsylvania Legislature for the abolition of capital punishment. Senator Sullivan, chairman of the committee to which they were referred, wrote to Mr. Niblock for the scripture view. He was ill and requested me to answer, which I did, and Mr. Sullivan drew liberally from my arguments in his report against granting the pet.i.tions. The report was attacked, and I defended it in several letters published in a Butler paper--anonymously--and this was my first appearance in print, except a short letter published by George D. Prentiss, in the Louisville _Journal_, of which I remember nothing, save the strangeness of seeing my thoughts in print.
CHAPTER XIV.
SWISSVALE.--AGE, 26, 27.
In April, 1842, my husband took possession of the old home in the valley, and we went there to live. There were large possibilities in the old house, and we soon had a pleasant residence. I had the furniture mother left me, and a small income from her estate. The farm I named ”Swissvale,” and such is the name thereof. When the Pennsylvania railroad was built it ran through it, but not in sight of the house, and the station was called for the homestead.
In the summer of '42 I began to write stories and rhymes, under the _nom de plume_ of ”Jennie Deans,” for _The Dollar Newspaper_ and _Neal's Sat.u.r.day Gazette_, both of Philadelphia. Reece C. Fleeson published an anti-slavery weekly in Pittsburg, _The Spirit of Liberty_, and for this I wrote abolition articles and essays on woman's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My productions were praised, and my husband was provoked that I did not use my own name. If I were not ashamed of my articles, why not sign them? He had not given up the idea that I should preach. Indeed, he held me accountable for most of the evils in the world, on the ground that I could overthrow them if I would.