extra work before and after school hours, and my

health began to fail. Those were years I do not
like to look back upon--years in which life had de-

generated into a treadmill whose monotony was
broken only by the grim messages from the front.

My sister Mary married and went to Big Rapids to
live. I had no time to dream my dream, but the star

of my one purpose still glowed in my dark horizon.
It seemed that nothing short of a miracle could lift

my feet from their plodding way and set them on the
wider path toward which my eyes were turned, but

I never lost faith that in some manner the miracle
would come to pass. As certainly as I have ever

known anything, I KNEW that I was going to college!
III

HIGH-SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS
The end of the Civil War brought freedom to

me, too. When peace was declared my father
and brothers returned to the claim in the wilderness

which we women of the family had labored so des-
perately to hold while they were gone. To us, as to

others, the final years of the war had brought many
changes. My sister Eleanor's place was empty.

Mary, as I have said, had married and gone to live in
Big Rapids, and my mother and I were alone with my

brother Harry, now a boy of fourteen. After the
return of our men it was no longer necessary to de-

vote every penny of my earnings to the maintenance
of our home. For the first time I could begin to

save a portion of my income toward the fulfilment
of my college dream, but even yet there was a long,

arid stretch ahead of me before the college doors
came even distantly into sight.

The largest salary I could earn by teaching in our
Northern woods was one hundred and fifty-six dollars

a year, for two terms of thirteen weeks each; and
from this, of course, I had to deduct the cost of my

board and clothing--the sole expenditure I allowed
myself. The dollars for an education accumulated

very, very slowly, until at last, in desperation, weary
of seeing the years of my youth rush past, bearing

my hopes with them, I took a sudden and radical
step. I gave up teaching, left our cabin in the

woods, and went to Big Rapids to live with my sister
Mary, who had married a successful man and who

generously offered me a home. There, I had de-
cided, I would learn a trade of some kind, of any

kind; it did not greatly matter what it was. The
sole essential was that it should be a money-making

trade, offering wages which would make it possible
to add more rapidly to my savings. In those days,

almost fifty years ago, and in a small pioneer town,
the fields open to women were few and unfruitful.

The needle at once presented itself, but at first I
turned with loathing from it. I would have pre-

ferred the digging of ditches or the shoveling of coal;
but the needle alone persistently pointed out my

way, and I was finally forced to take it.
Fate, however, as if weary at last of seeing me

between her paws, suddenly let me escape. Before
I had been working a month at my uncongenial

trade Big Rapids was favored by a visit from a
Universalist woman minister, the Reverend Marianna

Thompson, who came there to preach. Her ser-
mon was delivered on Sunday morning, and I was, I

think, almost the earliest arrival of the great con-
gregation which filled the church. It was a wonder-

ful moment when I saw my first woman minister
enter her pulpit; and as I listened to her sermon,

thrilled to the soul, all my early aspirations to be-
come a minister myself stirred in me with cumulative

force. After the services I hung for a time on the
fringe of the group that surrounded her, and at last,

when she was alone and about to leave, I found
courage to introduce myself and pour forth the tale

of my ambition. Her advice was as prompt as if
she had studied my problem for years.

``My child,'' she said, ``give up your foolish idea
of learning a trade, and go to school. You can't do

anything until you have an education. Get it, and
get it NOW.''

Her suggestion was much to my liking, and I paid
her the compliment of acting on it promptly, for

the next morning I entered the Big Rapids High
School, which was also a preparatory school for col-

lege. There I would study, I determined, as long
as my money held out, and with the optimism of

youth I succeeded in confining my imagination to
this side of that crisis. My home, thanks to Mary,

was assured; the wardrobe I had brought from the
woods covered me sufficiently; to one who had

walked five and six miles a day for years, walking
to school held no discomfort; and as for pleasure,

I found it, like a heroine of fiction, in my studies.
For the first time life was smiling at me, and with

all my young heart I smiled back.
The preceptress of the high school was Lucy

Foot, a college graduate and a remarkable woman.
I had heard much of her sympathy and understand-

ing; and on the evening following my first day in
school I went to her and repeated the confidences

I had reposed in the Reverend Marianna Thompson.
My trust in her was justified. She took an immedi-

ate interest in me, and proved it at once by putting
me into the speaking and debating classes, where I

was given every opportunity to hold forth to help-
less classmates when the spirit of eloquence moved

me.
As an aid to public speaking I was taught to ``elo-

cute,'' and I remember in every mournful detail
the occasion on which I gave my first recitation.

We were having our monthly ``public exhibition
night,'' and the audience included not only my class-

mates, but their parents and friends as well. The
selection I intended to recite was a poem entitled

``No Sects in Heaven,'' but when I faced my au-
dience I was so appalled by its size and by the sud-

den realization of my own temerity that I fainted
during the delivery of the first verse. Sympathetic

classmates carried me into an anteroom and revived
me, after which they naturally assumed that the

entertainment I furnished was over for the evening.
I, however, felt that if I let that failure stand against

me I could never afterward speak in public; and
within ten minutes, notwithstanding the protests

of my friends, I was back in the hall and beginning
my recitation a second time. The audience gave