KENTUCKY CONTEMPT FOR LABOR.—AGE, 23, 24.
To a white woman in Louisville, work was a dire disgrace, and one Sabbath four of us sat suffering from thirst, with the pump across the street, when I learned that for me to go for a pitcher of water, would be so great a disgrace to the house as to demand my instant expulsion.
I grew tired doing nothing. My husband's business did not prosper, and I went to a dressmaker and asked for work. She was a New England woman, and after some shrewd questions, exclaimed:
"My dear child, go home to your mother! What does your husband mean? Does he not know you would be insulted at every step if you work for a living? Go home—go home to your mother!"
I was homesick, and the kindness of the voice and eyes made me cry. I told her I could not leave my husband.
"Then let him support you, or send you home until he can! I have seen too many like you go to destruction here. Go home."
I said that I could never go to destruction, but she interrupted me:
"You know nothing about it. You are a mere baby. They all thought as you do. Go home to your mother!"
"But I never can go to destruction! No evil can befall me, for He that keepeth Israel slumbers not nor sleeps."
She concluded to give me work, but said: