"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.
Petitions 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 petitions. 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 Saturday 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.
Elizabeth was married in June, and went to Ohio. In the autumn, my husband's mother and the boys came to live with us, to which I made no objection, for "honor thy father and mother" was spoken as much to him as to me. Maybe I had some spiritual pride in seeing that she turned from her converted daughters, who were wealthy and lived near, to make a home with unregenerate me. She liked my housekeeping, and "grandmother," as I always called her, with her white 'kerchiefs and caps, sitting by the fireplace plying her knitting-needles, became my special pride.
My husband had converted the Louisville goods into one panther, one deer, two bears, and a roll of "wildcat" money. It was not very good stock with which to begin life on a farm, but the monotony was relieved by a hooking, kicking cow, and a horse which broke wagons to splinters.
Tom, the panther, was domiciled in the corner made by the old stone chimney and the log wall of the house, close to the path which led to the garden. The bears were chained in the meadow behind the house and Billy, the deer, ranged at will. Tom and the bears ate pigs and poultry so fast that we gave up trying to raise any, while Billy's visits to the garden did not improve the vegetables. I tried to establish some control over Tom, as a substitute for the fear he felt for his master, who was not always within call, and who insisted that Tom could be tamed so as to serve the place of a watchdog. Tom had been quite obedient for Tom, and my terror for him had abated.