“They did not ask me to speak,” she said, “and I was the only person present who had known Margaret and remembered her.”
I was deeply troubled about this. I saw that she had been hurt, and I knew that if I had gone to the meeting I could have managed to let it be known that she had brought her poem to read. For a very little time she was a good deal depressed by the incident—felt she was out of the race, no longer entered on the card for the running.
Very soon after this they telephoned me that there would be another hearing on the milk question at half past ten, and that it would probably go on all the morning. She had been very bright when she came down to breakfast and made a capital meal. When I went into her room, I found her at her desk all ready for the day’s campaign, though I knew that the Margaret Fuller incident still rankled.
“There’s to be a hearing at the State House on the milk question; they want you dreadfully to speak.”
She was all alert and full of interest in a moment.
“What do you say, shall we go?”
“Give me half an hour!”
I left her for that half hour. When I returned she had sketched out her speech and dressed herself in her best flowered silk cloak and her new lilac satin and lace hood—a birthday gift from a poor seamstress. We drove to the State House together, and after some difficulty in finding the right lift finally reached the room where the hearing was going on. She had made these notes for her speech, but had not brought them with her; we found them afterward in her desk.
“It seems to me that the theme of this hearing is one which should commend itself to all good citizens. I think that even our patient American public is tired of the delay, for although we are in many ways a happy people, I do think that our public is a long suffering one. I should think that we might hope for a speedy settlement. For we are not discussing points of taste and pleasure, but matters of life and death. There are various parties concerned in the desired settlement, but to my mind the party most nearly concerned is the infant who comes into this world relying upon a promise which we are bound to fulfil, the promise that he shall at least enjoy the conditions of life. I learn from men of science that no possible substitute exists for good milk in the rearing of infants. How can we then delay the action which shall secure it?”
She listened to the long speeches with interest, little realizing that this was to be her last public appearance in Boston. When the time came for her to speak, it was noticed that while all the others took the oath upon the Bible to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, the ceremony was omitted with her. As her name was called she rose and stepped forward leaning on my arm.