It was in this exaggerated spirit he met his new life, and there was no Mr. Curtis near to check his impetuosities. I wonder whether I was happy at this time. I have no doubt I appeared so, but I must have been very lonely. It was different with Robert. Every day he made fresh friends and he began to join societies for this and that purpose, and seemed to be in constant request. But it was Thanksgiving Day when I received my first caller, a Miss Dagget, the sister of the principal grocer in Chicago. She lived so close to me, that we could stand at our doors and converse without raising our voices.
From her conversation, however, I learned that I had been thoroughly discussed. Mrs. Nicholson had thought from our taking such a large house, that I might be going to keep boarders, and Mrs. Ogden had said she had heard, I was very well educated, and what a charity to the North Side it would be, if I opened a school and saved the children, the danger of crossing the dreadful draw-bridge. I said nothing at the time about Mrs. Ogden’s idea, but it took possession of me, and the result was that I opened a ladies’ school on the second of January, 1854. I limited the number of pupils to four boarders, and twelve day scholars, and made the terms prohibitive to all but the class, whose patronage I desired. They were indeed the cause of much conversation, but those paying them were proud of the circumstance, and liked to make it known by their complaints. It was their privilege, and did me more good, than harm.
A week before school opened, my number was complete, the spare rooms were furnished for the four boarders, and I had written to a New York Agency to send me a resident teacher who could speak French and teach music. My first pupil was one of the boarders, a Miss Sarah Morgan, a lovely affectionate girl about fifteen years old. I have not thought of her for many a year, but as soon as I began this sentence, she came 153 smiling into my memory, and I see her childish face with its apple bloom complexion, and her fair brown hair, just as I saw her the first day she came to me.
After the opening of my school there was no lack of callers and social invitations, but as it was impossible to accept all, I declined all; yet in many other ways, I received constant tokens of appreciation and good will. I began to be really happy. My children, my house, and my pupils kept every moment busy; and when the session closed early in June, the school had proved itself a financial success, and there were few women on the North Side more popular than myself. Of course I enjoyed it. Work was always a necessity to me and it is my belief, that when people work hard, they like to do it.
One afternoon during the vacation a brother of one of my pupils passed, and asked me if I had “read today’s paper;” I said, “I have not;” and he replied, “Then I will leave you mine.” After he had gone, I opened it without interest, but instantly saw Robert’s name in large type. It was above an account of a Know Nothing meeting; he had been speaking against the society, and the man I feared, in favor of it.
The speeches did not concern me, it was the fact that this man was in Chicago, and associated with Robert, that filled my whole consciousness. I looked backward a few weeks, put this and that together, and was then sure he had been in Chicago a long time. Robert’s silence troubled my very soul. Confused intuitions, obscure presentiments, took possession of me. My mind reached backward and forward, and began to foresee and foretell, and I had a cold shudder at my own thoughts.
Then I went into the house, for my anxiety usually runs into motion. If I sit still and bear it, I have become stupefied, while motion calls up whatever comfort or strength I can lay hold of. But during the last busy half-year, I had lost something of my general spiritual aptitude, at least the stream of that life ran deeper and darker, and I could remember nothing that had any message for me. For I had not then read, or I should not have forgotten John Milton’s fine advice against an unhappy looking forward to doubtful or questionable misfortunes:
“Be not o’er exquisite
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils,