Ten American Girls from History

by Kate Dickinson Sweetser

This necessary habit of concealment, and also the mother's need to earn her own living, made life anything but an easy matter for them both. The mother's terror lest her child be taken from her again made her fear to allow the little girl to walk out alone, even for a short distance, and in such positions as the older woman was able to secure, it was always with the promise that the child should be no nuisance. And so the young person grew up in a habit of self-effacement, and of sitting quietly in corners where she could not be seen or heard, instead of playing with other children of her own age. Then came a great hope, which even as she lay in bed and thought about it, brought the tears to her eyes, she had so longed to have it come true.

When she was six years old, she and her mother had been living in a boarding-house in Cleveland, where there was a good-natured actress boarding, who took such a fancy to the shy little girl who was always sitting in a corner reading a book, that one day she approached the astonished mother with a proposition to adopt her daughter. Seeing surprise on the mother's face, she frankly told of her position, her income and her intention to give the girl a fine education. She thought a convent school would be desirable, from then, say, until the young person was seventeen.

The mother was really tempted by the offer of a good education, which she saw no way to give her daughter, and might have accepted it if the actress had not added:

"When she reaches the age of seventeen, I will place her on the stage."

That ended the matter. The mother was horror-stricken, and could hardly make her refusal clear and decided enough. Even when her employer tried to make her see that by her refusal she might be doing her daughter a great injustice, she said, sharply: "It would be better for her to starve trying to lead an honorable life, than to be exposed to such publicity and such awful temptations." And thus, in ignorance of what the future had in store for her child, did she close the door on a golden opportunity for developing her greatest talent, and the young person's first dream of freedom and a fascinating career had come to grief. As she reviewed her disappointment and the dreary days that followed, a flood of self-pity welled up in the girl's heart, and she felt as if she must do something desperate to quiet her restless nature.

Fortunately the disappointment was followed by a welcome change of scene, for mother and daughter left Cleveland and went to try their fortunes in what was then "the far west." After a long trip by rail and a thirty-mile drive across the prairie, they arrived at their journey's end, and the marvelous quiet of the early May night in the country soothed the older woman's sore heart and filled the child with the joy of a real adventure.

They remained in that beautiful world beyond the prairie for two years, and never did the charm of the backwoods's life pall on the growing girl, who did not miss the city sights and sounds, but exulted in the new experiences as, "with the other children on the farm, she dropped corn in the sun-warmed furrows, while a man followed behind with a hoe covering it up; and when it had sprouted and was a tempting morsel for certain black robbers of the field, she made a very active and energetic young scarecrow."

While the out-of-door life was a fine thing for the young person, still more to her advantage was it that she was now thrown with other children, who were happy, hearty, rollicking youngsters, and, seeing that the stranger was new to farm-life, had rare fun at her expense. For instance, as she later told:

"They led me forth to a pasture, shortly after our arrival at the farm, and, catching a horse, they hoisted me up on to its bare, slippery back. I have learned a good bit about horses since then," she says, "have hired, borrowed and bought them, but never since have I seen a horse of such appalling aspect. His eyes were the size of soup-plates, large clouds of smoke came from his nostrils. He had a glass-enamelled surface, and if he was half as tall as he felt, some museum manager missed a fortune. Then the young fiends, leaving me on my slippery perch, high up near the sky, drew afar off and stood against the fence, and gave me plenty of room to fall off. But when I suddenly felt the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild shriek—clenched my hands in the animal's black hair and, madly flinging propriety to any point of the compass that happened to be behind me, I cast one pantalette over the enameled back, and thus astride safely crossed the pasture—and lo, it was not I who fell, but their faces instead! When they came to take me down somehow the animal seemed shrunken, and I hesitated about leaving it, whereupon the biggest boy said I had 'pluck.' I had been frightened nearly to death, but I always could be silent at the proper moment; I was silent then, and he would teach me to ride sideways, for my mother would surely punish me if I sat astride like that. In a few weeks, thanks to him, I was the one who was oftenest trusted to take the horses to water at noon, riding sideways and always bare-back, mounted on one horse and leading a second to the creek, until all had had their drink. Which habit of riding—from balance—" the young person adds, "has made me quite independent of stirrups since those far-away days."

Besides the riding, there were many other delightful pastimes which were a part of life on the farm, and on rainy days, when the children could not play out of doors, they would flock to the big barn, and listen eagerly to stories told by the city girl, who had read them in books. Two precious years passed all too swiftly on the farm, and the young person was fast shooting up into a tall, slender girl, who had learned a love of nature in all its forms, which never left her. She had also grown stronger, which satisfied her mother that the experiment had been successful. But now there was education to be thought of, and when news came of the death of that father, who had been the haunting specter of the mother's life, they went back at once to Cleveland, where the mother obtained employment, and the growing daughter was sent to a public school. But at best it gave a meager course of study to one who had always been a reader of every book on which she could lay her hands. To make the dreary, daily routine less tiresome, she supplemented it by a series of "thinks." These usually took place at night after her candle had been blown out, and the young person generally fell asleep in a white robe and a crown of flowers, before she had gathered up all the prizes and diplomas and things she had earned in the world of reverie, where her dream self had been roving.