Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
conclusion, after much thought and observation, that children never
cried unless they were uncomfortable. A professor at Union College, who
used to combat many of my theories, said he gave one of his children a
sound spanking at six weeks, and it never disturbed him a night
afterward. Another Solomon told me that a very weak preparation of opium
would keep a child always quiet and take it through the dangerous period
of teething without a ripple on the surface of domestic life. As
children cannot tell what ails them, and suffer from many things of
which parents are ignorant, the crying of the child should arouse them
to an intelligent examination. To spank it for crying is to silence the
watchman on the tower through fear, to give soothing syrup is to drug
the watchman while the evils go on. Parents may thereby insure eight
hours' sleep at the time, but at the risk of greater trouble in the
future with sick and dying children. Tom Moore tells us "the heart from
love to one, grows bountiful to all." I know the care of one child made
me thoughtful of all. I never hear a child cry, now, that I do not feel
that I am bound to find out the reason.
In my extensive travels on lecturing tours, in after years, I had many
varied experiences with babies. One day, in the cars, a child was crying
near me, while the parents were alternately shaking and slapping it.
First one would take it with an emphatic jerk, and then the other. At
last I heard the father say in a spiteful tone, "If you don't stop I'll
throw you out of the window." One naturally hesitates about interfering
between parents and children, so I generally restrain myself as long as
I can endure the torture of witnessing such outrages, but at length I
turned and said:
"Let me take your child and see if I can find out what ails it."
"Nothing ails it," said the father, "but bad temper."
The child readily came to me. I felt all around to see if its clothes
pinched anywhere, or if there were any pins pricking. I took off its hat
and cloak to see if there were any strings cutting its neck or choking
it. Then I glanced at the feet, and lo! there was the trouble. The boots
were at least one size too small. I took them off, and the stockings,
too, and found the feet as cold as ice and the prints of the stockings
clearly traced on the tender flesh. We all know the agony of tight
boots. I rubbed the feet and held them in my hands until they were warm,
when the poor little thing fell asleep. I said to the parents, "You are
young people, I see, and this is probably your first child." They said,
"Yes." "You don't intend to be cruel, I know, but if you had thrown
those boots out of the window, when you threatened to throw the child,
it would have been wiser. This poor child has suffered ever since it was
dressed this morning." I showed them the marks on the feet, and called
their attention to the fact that the child fell asleep as soon as its
pain was relieved. The mother said she knew the boots were tight, as it
was with difficulty she could get them on, but the old ones were too
shabby for the journey and they had no time to change the others.
"Well," said the husband, "if I had known those boots were tight, I
would have thrown them out of the window."
"Now," said I, "let me give you one rule: when your child cries,
remember it is telling you, as well as it can, that something hurts it,
either outside or in, and do not rest until you find what it is.
Neither spanking, shaking, or scolding can relieve pain."
I have seen women enter the cars with their babies' faces completely
covered with a blanket shawl. I have often thought I would like to cover
their faces for an hour and see how they would bear it. In such
circumstances, in order to get the blanket open, I have asked to see the
baby, and generally found it as red as a beet. Ignorant nurses and
mothers have discovered that children sleep longer with their heads
covered. They don't know why, nor the injurious effect of breathing over
and over the same air that has been thrown off the lungs polluted with
carbonic acid gas. This stupefies the child and prolongs the unhealthy
slumber.
One hot day, in the month of May, I entered a crowded car at Cedar
Rapids, Ia., and took the only empty seat beside a gentleman who seemed
very nervous about a crying child. I was scarcely seated when he said:
"Mother, do you know anything about babies?"
"Oh, yes!" I said, smiling, "that is a department of knowledge on which
I especially pride myself."
"Well," said he, "there is a child that has cried most of the time for
the last twenty-four hours. What do you think ails it?"
Making a random supposition, I replied, "It probably needs a bath."
He promptly rejoined, "If you will give it one, I will provide the
necessary means."
I said, "I will first see if the child will come to me and if the mother
is willing."
I found the mother only too glad to have a few minutes' rest, and the
child too tired to care who took it. She gave me a suit of clean
clothes throughout, the gentleman spread his blanket shawl on the seat,
securing the opposite one for me and the bathing appliances. Then he
produced a towel, sponge, and an india-rubber bowl full of water, and I
gave the child a generous drink and a thorough ablution. It stretched
and seemed to enjoy every step of the proceeding, and, while I was
brushing its golden curls as gently as I could, it fell asleep; so I
covered it with the towel and blanket shawl, not willing to disturb it
for dressing. The poor mother, too, was sound asleep, and the gentleman
very happy. He had children of his own and, like me, felt great pity for
the poor, helpless little victim of ignorance and folly. I engaged one
of the ladies to dress it when it awoke, as I was soon to leave the
train. It slept the two hours I remained--how much longer I never heard.
A young man, who had witnessed the proceeding, got off at the same
station and accosted me, saying:
"I should be very thankful if you would come and see my baby. It is only
one month old and cries all the time, and my wife, who is only sixteen
years old, is worn out with it and neither of us know what to do, so we
all cry together, and the doctor says he does not see what ails it."
So I went on my mission of mercy and found the child bandaged as tight
as a drum. When I took out the pins and unrolled it, it fairly popped
like the cork out of a champagne bottle. I rubbed its breast and its
back and soon soothed it to sleep. I remained a long time, telling them
how to take care of the child and the mother, too. I told them
everything I could think of in regard to clothes, diet, and pure air. I
asked the mother why she bandaged her child as she did. She said her
nurse told her that there was danger of hernia unless the abdomen was
well bandaged. I told her that the only object of a bandage was to
protect the navel, for a few days, until it was healed, and for that
purpose all that was necessary was a piece of linen four inches square,
well oiled, folded four times double, with a hole in the center, laid
over it. I remembered, next day, that I forgot to tell them to give the
child water, and so I telegraphed them, "Give the baby water six times a
day." I heard of that baby afterward. It lived and flourished, and the
parents knew how to administer to the wants of the next one. The father
was a telegraph operator and had many friends--knights of the
key--throughout Iowa. For many years afterward, in leisure moments,
these knights would "call up" this parent and say, over the wire, "Give
the baby water six times a day." Thus did they "repeat the story, and
spread the truth from pole to pole."
CHAPTER VIII.
BOSTON AND CHELSEA.
In the autumn of 1843 my husband was admitted to the bar and commenced
the practice of law in Boston with Mr. Bowles, brother-in-law of the
late General John A. Dix. This gave me the opportunity to make many
pleasant acquaintances among the lawyers in Boston, and to meet,
intimately, many of the noble men and women among reformers, whom I had
long worshiped at a distance. Here, for the first time, I met Lydia
Maria Child, Abby Kelly, Paulina Wright, Elizabeth Peabody, Maria
Chapman and her beautiful sisters, the Misses Weston, Oliver and
Marianna Johnson, Joseph and Thankful Southwick and their three bright
daughters. The home of the Southwicks was always a harbor of rest for
the weary, where the anti-slavery hosts were wont to congregate, and
where one was always sure to meet someone worth knowing. Their
hospitality was generous to an extreme, and so boundless that they were,
at last, fairly eaten out of house and home. Here, too, for the first
time, I met Theodore Parker, John Pierpont, John G. Whittier, Emerson,
Alcott, Lowell, Hawthorne, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Sewall, Sidney Howard
Gay, Pillsbury, Foster, Frederick Douglass, and last though not least,
those noble men, Charles Hovey and Francis Jackson, the only men who
ever left any money to the cause of woman suffrage. I also met Miss
Jackson, afterward Mrs. Eddy, who left half her fortune, fifty thousand
dollars, for the same purpose.
I was a frequent visitor at the home of William Lloyd Garrison. Though
he had a prolonged battle to fight in the rough outside world, his home
was always a haven of rest. Mrs. Garrison was a sweet-tempered,
conscientious woman, who tried, under all circumstances, to do what was
right. She had sound judgment and rare common sense, was tall and
fine-looking, with luxuriant brown hair, large tender blue eyes,
delicate features, and affable manners. They had an exceptionally fine
family of five sons and one daughter. Fanny, now the wife of Henry
Villard, the financier, was the favorite and pet. All the children, in
their maturer years, have fulfilled the promises of their childhood.
Though always in straitened circumstances, the Garrisons were very
hospitable. It was next to impossible for Mr. Garrison to meet a friend
without inviting him to his house, especially at the close of a
convention.
I was one of twelve at one of his impromptu tea parties. We all took it
for granted that his wife knew we were coming, and that her preparations
were already made. Surrounded by half a dozen children, she was
performing the last act in the opera of Lullaby, wholly unconscious of
the invasion downstairs. But Mr. Garrison was equal to every emergency,
and, after placing his guests at their ease in the parlor, he hastened
to the nursery, took off his coat, and rocked the baby until his wife
had disposed of the remaining children. Then they had a consultation
about the tea, and when, basket in hand, the good man sallied forth for
the desired viands, Mrs. Garrison, having made a hasty toilet, came
down to welcome her guests. She was as genial and self-possessed as if
all things had been prepared. She made no apologies for what was lacking
in the general appearance of the house nor in the variety of the
_menu_--it was sufficient for her to know that Mr. Garrison was happy in
feeling free to invite his friends. The impromptu meal was excellent,
and we had a most enjoyable evening. I have no doubt that Mrs. Garrison
had more real pleasure than if she had been busy all day making
preparations and had been tired out when her guests arrived.
The anti-slavery conventions and fairs, held every year during the
holidays, brought many charming people from other States, and made
Boston a social center for the coadjutors of Garrison and Phillips.
These conventions surpassed any meetings I had ever attended; the
speeches were eloquent and the debates earnest and forcible. Garrison
and Phillips were in their prime, and slavery was a question of national
interest. The hall in which the fairs were held, under the auspices of