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Sabbath Away from Home.

Afternoon.-The scholars are more vexatious than usual and I find it rather difficult to keep my temper, though I have succeeded thus far. The children overwhelm me with flowers, the desk is piled with them; they enliven this doleful place wonderfully. And alas! for me the time even now is when I must make comfort to myself out of roses and lilies instead of friends and home. One of my scholars had a fit in school and we all were frightened, but I was "schoolma'am" to the best of my ability.

Evening. I have not laughed so heartily in months as over a scientific result obtained by Clara and me this evening, and have been just as wild and thoughtless as I ever was at home. Clara is eighteen and her enthusiasm on the subjects we are to investigate together, awakens mine. Perhaps my life is not going to be so very hard, but I can not tell. One moment I am in the sunshine and the next I am in the shade; so delicate is my spiritual thermometer that from zero to summer day a pleasant breath of the sweet south wind will raise the mercury.

June 10.-Sabbath morning. Rose at nine o'clock, breakfasted, arranged my room, and am wondering at the strange day that I shall spend, so different from Evanston with all its Christian privileges. This family is not religious. There is no church that I can attend, no outward form of worship in which I can show the gratitude and love that fill my heart this beautiful day. I can see father and mother, sister and brother, in the old pew. I know they all have prayed that I might be shielded, strengthened and comforted by our God who is over all, blessed forever. Mother has wondered what I was doing to-day and has hoped in her heart that I might be happy and serene and that I might live and act like a Christian under whatever circumstances I may be placed. The younger members of this family have taken their pony and ridden off to the strawberry patch to spend the day. The proprietor sits in the library below with six or seven friends who have ridden out from the city; they are smoking their cigars and talking of horseraces, sporting, and the like. The mistress of the establishment is busy superintending the preparation of the Sunday dinner, for Mr. T. is a rich man and fares sumptuously every day. It is a queer Sabbath, I never spent one like it. God, help me to remember Thee and heaven and holiness while all around is of the earth, earthy. I have stayed in my room with Clara, read a little, talked with her the rest of the time. I do not know what I should do without her. She is a petted child, the only daughter, not used to thinking much of others' comfort, but she is very kind to me and marvelously thoughtful of my happiness. Clara and I did not go down to dinner, which was a comfort. Have read my favorite 119th Psalm with solid satisfaction.

Evening, June 11.-School has been positively zestful, my pupils enthusiastic and easily governed. The sun has shone and the sky has been as blue as a violet, and, best of all, I have had four letters from home.

June 12.-My pupils have not been as studious or as easily governed as usual, to-day, and have troubled me greatly. Have been obliged to box the ears of two reprobates, ferule the brown palms of four, and lay violent hands on another to coerce him into measures that did not meet his views. All this I have done; I am sorry it became necessary, for I feel kindly toward them all

A Lonesome "School Ma'am."

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and never speak a harsh word only as they force me to do so by the total depravity they manifest in their conduct, and yet the little creatures bring me flowers and evince in many little actions a kind of regard for me that is most pleasant.

I have given these extracts showing what a young teacher once endured, because I know ten thousand others have had a similar experience, and I have hoped to bring somewhat of good cheer and courage to those as faint-hearted in their new endeavor as I was in mine so many years ago.

CHAPTER II.

KANKAKEE ACADEMY.

(1860).

After a few months at home I engaged to go to Kankakee, an Illinois county-seat about sixty miles from Chicago, as assistant teacher in an academy started by Prof. Charles B. Woodruff (the former principal of the "Blind Institute" at Janesville, Wis., and my father's friend). Here I remained one term, but owing to the urgent wishes of my parents did not return after the Christmas holidays. My cousin, Miss Sarah F. Gilman, of Churchville, N. Y., took my place and made a decided success of the venture, in more ways than one, as she here made the acquaintance of Harry Dusinbury, whom she married within the year. The story of this second effort as a pedagogue is best given in journal language:

September 26, 1860.-Very busy getting ready to go. Letter from Professor Woodruff in answer to my telegraphic dispatch, giving me further particulars and saying that he will secure my boarding-place and meet me at the night train. As nearly as I can find out, I am to teach philosophy, history, drawing, grammar, and all the reading classes, how many soever there may be. I received from Clara Thatcher one of her warm-hearted, impetuous epistles. What a heroine that girl has proved herself to be! Right on through summer's heat she has carried, all alone, the Sundayschool we founded in the little red school-house so forlorn. She says Oliver is to have their school, and he is glad and so are we, for the wages are excellent. What an unromantic consideration! But he will not have half so hard a time as I had, for he will be in the nice, large, brick building instead of my wretched little wooden house. Yet when I think of spending all the winter there, I can but murmur, "Poor fellow," to myself, for Evanston is a town that makes almost any other seem half barbarous. The fact that the University charter forever forbids saloons tells a whole dictionary full about our moral status.

And so I am to go from home before our dear relatives come from the East, and I have not seen them in many years, not since I was a young girl.

They are all very dear to me and I was especially anxious to see my Aunt Elizabeth who is loved with more than the love of near relationship by me, and for whom I am named. In the lonely days that will follow my going I shall think of those whom I have left behind and the other loved ones who are coming, as they enjoy themselves together in our home, while I am lonesome, tired and heart-sick. In the evening Mary and I sang for hours to father, who is not particular about the quality and cultivation of our voices, it being sufficient for him that, as in the olden days, his daughters sing together "Bonnie Doon," "Come this way, my father," ". Star-spangled Banner," and the rest; when we closed with Longfellow's "Rainy Day," mother sat with her hand shading her eyes and a sad expression on the dearest face in all the world to me. I knew she was thinking about my birthday so near at hand, about my going off again, about her birds that are making longer flights at every trial and need no more to have her bear them up upon her wings. I knew that she was being sorry for me as only one can be, that one my mother. Oliver and Beth Vincent were upstairs making the library catalogue for the Sunday-school. Aunt Sarah sat with us, listening quietly to everything. Father threw in a remark now and then, sometimes lively, sometimes sad, but always quaint and curious. And thus endeth the last home-picture I shall draw for many a day. I have been trying to think why I go away to this new work so soon. I can not tell. I only know that I have some dim sense that it is right and best. Certainly it is not the happiest. But I have come to believe that it is well for us, well for our characters, those beautiful fabrics we are weaving every day, to do those things that do not make us happy, but only make us strong.

I have never felt reluctant to tell my age. It early came to me that nothing was less dignified than to make a secret of one's personal chronology. Marketable values in many instances depend on freshness, and if a girl has no broader view of her relations to the world than the relation she may hold to some man who will prize her more if she is younger, then she does well to hide her age. But if she is a dignified human being, who has started out, "heart within and God o'erhead," upon an endless voyage wherein she sails by the stars rather than by the clock, she will never hesitate either to know or to announce just where she is on that long voyage; how many days out from childhoodland. The first mention I find in my journal of this way of looking at the subject is the following:

September 27, 1860.-I have often wondered why it is that people generally, and ladies especially, are so unwilling to have their ages known. We are immortal, and, for aught we know, eternal. We never regard Gabriel as old, though the prophet Daniel first introduced him to us. Our baby brothers and sisters who have died are babies still to us, lambs in the flock

that the gentle Shepherd leads. If we do not think of age when we think about eternity, why should we in time, which is only eternity cut off at both ends? And yet we do regard it very much. This was accounted for to me recently, in the case of ladies, on the ground that their attractions diminish as their years increase, after a certain point, and that consequently the number of years is made a mystery. Ah, I have it! If "one" is beautiful, there is some reason in one's keeping one's age a secret, but if one is not, one has little or nothing to lose by the flight of years in this respect, while one is constantly adding to one's attractions in other ways, that is, in knowledge of the world, intelligence, culture, conversational ability, etc.; therefore, if one is not beautiful, it is foolish to make a secret of one's age. Corollary: My course is plain, because I myself am plain! It shall always be in order for any one to propound to me the usually much-dreaded question, "How old are you-if I may be so bold?"

Why should men universally tell their ages? Because a man is an individual and not dependent upon others for his support. I early resolved that I would not be dependent, either, and later that I would try to help all other women to the same vantage-ground of self-help and self-respect. I determined, also, that I would set them a good example by always freely speaking of my age, which I have not shunned to declare, my mother facetiously contending that I keep it, and hers, too, for that matter, just one year ahead of the current calendar.

I have not done much in these years, yet God knows I will try to make up if He will spare me, and somehow I believe He will.

September 29.-Going away to Kankakee to-morrow to begin my work. Packed my trunk so as to have it out of the way. Oliver kindly lent me Nolte's "Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres," D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation," Scott's "Bride of Lammermoor," and the first volume of Bohn's edition of "Plato," to take with me.

Kankakee, Ill., October 2, 1860.—Another book to begin and a new, strange life to tell of. What a world this is, to be sure, and how we struggle about in it, straying off from those whom we love and those who love us, to strange, unfriendly regions, resolutely turning away from books and quiet to take in their stead pain, weariness and toil; yet in it all there is the comforting reflection that we are right, that in our nature there still exists, notwithstanding all our sins and ignorance, a spark of Godhood, a shimmering ray from the stars that shine serenely in the zenith of the angels, a breath of divinity which stirs within every human soul. Father left me yesterday evening, and I prayed quite trustfully and went to sleep with a broad grin on my face, put on through sheer strength of will. Well, this morning, I went to the Kankakee Academy, where I am second teacher, and on the whole have had a tolerable day. I am going to try not to cry once while I am here, for I am twenty-one, I would have you understand. It is not so very bad, and I won't care. I wish I were a better woman. I shall always call myself that now.