Once also I watched with a poor woman who was dying with cancer. I tried it for two nights, but the remark of her sister, as I left utterly worn out, "Some folks seem to get all their good things in this life," deterred me from attempting it again.
Started a school a little later in the ell of our house for my friends among the Hanover children—forty-five scholars in all. Kept it going successfully for two years.
I dislike to tell a story so incredible and so against myself as this. One evening father said, "I am going to my room early tonight, Katie; do not forget to lock the back door." I sat reading until quite late, then retired. About 2.30 A.M., I was startled to hear someone gently open that back door, then take off boots and begin to softly ascend the stairs, which stopped only the width of a narrow hall from my room. I have been told that I said in trembling tones, "You're trying to keep pretty quiet down there." Next moment I was at the head of the stairs; saw a man whom I did not recognize on the last step but one. I struck a heavy blow on his chest, saying, "Go down, sir," and down he tumbled all the way, his boots clanking along by themselves. Then the door opened, my burglar disappeared, and I went down and locked the back door as I had promised father I would. I felt less proud of my physical prowess and real courage when my attention was called to a full account of my assault in the college papers of the day. The young man was not rooming at our house, but coming into town quite late, planned to lodge with a friend there. He threw gravel at this young man's window in the third story to waken him, and failing thought at last he would try the door, and if not locked he would creep up, and disturb no one. But "Miss Sanborn knocked a man all the way downstairs" was duly announced. I then realized my awful mistake, and didn't care to appear on the street for some time except in recitation hours.
The second time I lectured in Burlington, I was delayed nearly half an hour at that dreadful Junction, about which place Professor Edward J. Phelps, afterwards Minister to England, wrote a fierce rhyme to relieve his rage at being compelled to waste so much precious time there. I recall only two revengeful lines:
"I hope in hell his soul may dwell,
Who first invented Essex Junction."
Oh, yes, I do remember his idea that the cemetery near the station contained the bodies of many weary ones who had died just before help came and were shovelled over.
It happened that Mrs. Underwood, wife of the demented governor, who had alluded so truthfully to my lecture, was in the audience, and being gifted with genuine clairvoyant powers, she rose and begged the audience not to disperse, as she could distinctly see me pacing nervously up and down the platform at the Junction in a long sealskin coat and hat trimmed with band of fur. I arrived at last with the sealskin and the hat, proving her correct, and they cheered her as well as myself.
Our little village had its share of eccentric characters, as the old man who was impelled by the edict of the Bible to cut off his right hand as it had "offended him." But lacking surgical facilities, the effort left one hand hanging limp and useless. His long white beard, how truly patriarchal!
Poor insane Sally Duget—a sad story! Her epitaph in our cemetery is pathetic. With all her woe she was quick at repartee. A man once asked her, "Shall you ever marry, Sally?" "Well, yes, if you and I can make a bargain."
Elder Bawker with his difficulties in locomotion.