own preferred, but at any rate characteristic."

My trips to those various towns taught me to be more humble, and to
admire the women I met, discovering how seriously they had studied,
and how they made use of every opportunity. I remember Somersworth,
New Hampshire, and Burlington, Vermont. I lectured twice at the Insane
Asylum at Concord, New Hampshire, invited by Dr. Bancroft. After
giving my "newspaper wits" a former governor of Vermont came up to
shake hands with me, saying frankly, "Miss Sanborn, your lecture was
just about right for us lunatics." A former resident of Hanover, in a
closed cell, greeted me the next morning as I passed, with a torrent
of abuse, profanity, and obscenity. She too evidently disliked my
lecture. Had an audience of lunatics also at the McLean Insane Asylum,
Dr. Coles, Superintendent.

I think I was the first woman ever invited to make an address to
farmers on farming. I spoke at Tilton, New Hampshire, to more than
three hundred men about woman's day on the farm. Insinuated that
women need a few days _off_ the farm. Said a good many other things
that were not applauded. Farmers seemed to know nothing of the
advantages of co-operation, and that they were as much slaves (to the
middlemen) as ever were the negroes in the South. They even tried to
escape from me at the noise of a dog-fight outside. I offered to
provide a large room for social meetings, to stock it with books of
the day, and to send them a lot of magazines and other reading. Not
one ever made the slightest response. Now they have all and more than
I suggested.

When but seventeen, I was sent for to watch with Professor Shurtleff,
really a dying man, and left all alone with him in the lower part of
the house; he begged about 2 A.M. to be taken up and placed in a
rocking-chair near the little open fire. The light was dim and the
effect was very weird. His wig hung on one bedpost, he had lost one
eye, and the patch worn over the empty eye socket had been left on the
bureau. My anxiety was great lest he should slip from the chair and
tip into the fire. I note this to mark the great change since that
time. Neighbours are not now expected to care for the sick and dying,
but trained nurses are always sought, and most of them are noble
heroines in their profession.

Once also I watched with a poor woman who was dying with cancer. I
tried it for two nights, but the remark of her sister, as I left
utterly worn out, "Some folks seem