Returning to my native hills, I found the Lenten season had fairly set in, which I always dreaded on account of the solemn, tolling bell, the Episcopal church being just opposite our residence. On Sunday we had the bells of six churches all going at the same time. It is strange how long customs continue after the original object has ceased to exist. At an early day, when the country was sparsely settled and the people lived at great distances, bells were useful to call them together when there was to be a church service. But now, when the churches are always open on Sunday, and every congregation knows the hour of services and all have clocks, bells are not only useless, but they are a terrible nuisance to invalids and nervous people. If I am ever so fortunate as to be elected a member of a town council, my first efforts will be toward the suppression of bells.
To encourage one of my sex in the trying profession of book agent, I purchased, about this time, Dr. Lord's "Beacon Lights of History," and read the last volume devoted to women, Pagan and Christian, saints and sinners. It is very amusing to see the author's intellectual wriggling and twisting to show that no one can be good or happy without believing in the Christian religion. In describing great women who are not Christians, he attributes all their follies and miseries to that fact. In describing Pagan women, possessed of great virtues, he attributes all their virtues to Nature's gifts, which enable them to rise superior to superstitions.
After dwelling on the dreary existence of those not of Christian faith, he forthwith pictures his St. Teresa going through twenty years of doubts and fears about the salvation of her soul. The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.
In May, 1885, we left Johnstown and took possession of our house at Tenafly, New Jersey. It seemed very pleasant, after wandering in the Old World and the New, to be in my own home once more, surrounded by the grand trees I so dearly loved; to see the gorgeous sunsets, the twinkling fireflies; to hear the whippoorwills call their familiar note, while the June bugs and the mosquitoes buzz outside the nets through which they cannot enter.
Many people complain of the mosquito in New Jersey, when he can so easily be shut out of the family circle by nets over all the doors and windows.
I had a long piazza, encased in netting, where paterfamilias, with his pipe, could muse and gaze at the stars unmolested.
June brought Miss Anthony and a box of fresh documents for another season of work on vol.iii. of our History. We had a flying visit from Miss Eddy of Providence, daughter of Mrs. Eddy who gave fifty thousand dollars to the woman suffrage movement, and a granddaughter of Francis Jackson of Boston, who also left a generous bequest to our reform. We found Miss Eddy a charming young woman with artistic tastes. She showed us several pen sketches she had made of some of our reformers, that were admirable likenesses.
Mr. Stanton's "Random Recollections" were published at this time and were well received. A dinner was given him, on his eightieth birdthday (June 27, 1885), by the Press Club of New York city, with speeches and toasts by his lifelong friends. As no ladies were invited I can only judge from the reports in the daily papers, and what I could glean from the honored guest himself, that it was a very interesting occasion.
Sitting in the summerhouse, one day, I witnessed a most amusing scene.
Two of the boys, in search of employment, broke up a hornets' nest. Bruno, our large Saint Bernard dog, seeing them jumping about, thought he would join in the fun. The boys tried to drive him away, knowing that the hornets would get in his long hair, but Bruno's curiosity outran his caution and he plunged into the midst of the swarm and was soon compleletely covered.
The buzzing and stinging soon sent the poor dog howling on the run. He rushed as usual, in his distress, to Amelia in the kitchen, where she and the girls were making preserves and ironing. When they saw the hornets, they dropped irons, spoons, jars, everything, and rushed out of doors screaming.
I appreciated the danger in time to get safely into the house before Bruno came to me for aid and comfort. At last they played the hose on him until he found some relief; the maidens, armed with towels, thrashed right and left, and the boys, with evergreen branches, fought bravely. I had often heard of "stirring up a hornets' nest," but I had never before seen a practical demonstration of its danger. For days after, if Bruno heard anything buzz, he would rush for the house at the top of his speed. But in spite of these occasional lively episodes, vol. iii. went steadily on.
My suffrage sons and daughters through all the Northern and Western States decided to celebrate, on the 12th of November, 1885, my seventieth birthday, by holding meetings or sending me gifts and congratulations. This honor was suggested by Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert in The New Era, a paper she was editing at that time. The suggestion met with a ready response. I was invited to deliver an essay on "The Pleasures of Age," before the suffrage association in New York city. It took me a week to think them up, but with the inspiration of Longfellow's "Morituri Salutamus," I was almost converted to the idea that "we old folks" had the best of it.
