They’ll carry us through.
Edwin Ingalls was a wiry little man, a person of character and thrift, like his good wife Charlotte; for such they proved themselves when in after years they settled in Wisconsin, pioneers of their own day and generation. In December, 1842, they kept tavern, and a prime hostess was Charlotte Ingalls, broiling her meats on a spit before a great open fire in the good old-fashioned way. Angeline attended school, taught by Edwin Ingalls, and found time out of school hours to study natural philosophy besides. Indeed, the little girl very early formed the habit of reading, showing an especial fondness for history. And when news came the next Spring of her mother’s marriage to a Mr. Milton Woodward, she was ready with a quotation from “The Lady of the Lake”:
... Woe the while
That brought such wanderer to our isle.
The quotation proved altogether appropriate. Mr. Woodward was a strong-willed widower with five strong-willed sons and five strong-willed daughters. The next four years Angeline was a sort of white slave in this family of wrangling brothers and sisters. When her sister Charlotte inquired how she liked her new home, her answer was simply, “Ma’s there.”
The story of this second marriage of Electa Cook’s is worthy of record. Any impatience toward her first husband of which she may have been guilty was avenged upon her a hundred-fold. And yet the second marriage was a church affair. Mr. Woodward saw her at church and took a fancy to her. Had the minister intercede for him. “It will make a home for you, Mrs. Stickney,” said the minister—as if she were not the mistress of seventy-two acres in her own right! Why she gave up her independence it is difficult to see; but the ways of women are past finding out. Perhaps she sympathized with the ten motherless Woodward children. Perhaps she loved Mr. Milton Woodward, for he was a man of violent temper, and sometimes abused her in glorious fashion. At the very outset, he opposed her bringing her unmarried daughters to his house. She insisted; but might more wisely have yielded the point. For two of the daughters married their step-brothers, and shared the Woodward fate.
Twelve-year old Angeline went to work very industriously at the Woodward farm on Dry Hill. What the big, strapping Woodward girls could have been doing it is hard to say—wholly occupied with finding husbands, perhaps. For until 1847 Angeline was her mother’s chief assistant, at times doing most of the housework herself. She baked for the large family, mopped floors, endured all sorts of drudgery, and even waded through the snow to milk cows. But with it all she attended school, and made great progress. She liked grammar and arithmetic, and on one occasion showed her ability as a speller by spelling down the whole school. She even went to singing school, and sang in the church choir. Some of the envious Woodward children ridiculed the hard-working, ambitious girl by calling her “Lady Angeline,” a title which she lived up to from that time forth.
Let me reproduce here two of her compositions, written when she was fourteen years of age. They are addressed as letters to her teacher, Mr. George Waldo:
Rodman, January 21st 1845
Sir, As you have requested me to write and have given me the subjects upon which to write, I thought I would try to write what I could about the Sugar Maple. The Sugar Maple is a very beautiful as well as useful tree. In the summer the beasts retire to its kind shade from the heat of the sun. And though the lofty Oak and pine tower above it, perhaps they are no more useful. Sugar is made from the sap of this tree, which is a very useful article. It is also used for making furniture such as tables bureaus &c. and boards for various uses. It is also used to cook Our victuals and to keep us warm. But its usefulness does not stop here even the ashes are useful; they are used for making potash which with the help of flint or sand and a good fire to melt it is made into glass which people could not very well do without. Glass is good to help the old to see and to give light to our houses. Besides all this teliscopes are made of glass by the help of which about all the knowledge of the mighty host of planetary worlds has been discovered. This tree is certainly very useful. In the first place sugar is made from it. Then it gives us all sorts of beautiful furniture. Then it warms our houses and cooks our victuals and then even then we get something from the ashes yes something very useful. No more at present.