or the "true
woman" as they liked to call her; and one of these ways was physical
exercise in the fresh air, which was almost unheard of for women
except on the frontier.

Taking off her hoops and working in the garden in the freedom of her
long calico dress, Susan was refreshed and exhilarated. "Uncovered the
strawberry and raspberry beds ..." her diary records. "Worked with
Simon building frames for the grapevines in the peach orchards.... Set
out 18 English black currants, 22 English gooseberries and Muscatine
grape vines.... Finished setting out the apple trees & 600 blackberry
bushes...."[90]

She knew how little this strengthening work and healing influence
touched the lives of most women. Hemmed in by the walls of their
homes, weighed down by bulky confining clothing, fed on the tradition
of weakness, women could never gain the breadth of view, courage, and
stamina needed to demand and appreciate emancipation. She thought a
great deal about this and how it could be remedied, and wrote her
friend, Thomas Wentworth Higginson "The salvation of the race depends,
in a great measure, upon rescuing women from their hot-house
existence. Whether in kitchen, nursery or parlor, all alike are shut
away from God's sunshine. Why did not your Caroline Plummer of Salem,
why do not all of our wealthy women leave money for industrial and
agricultural schools for girls, instead of ever and always providing
for boys alone?"[91]

An exceptional opportunity was now offered Susan--to speak on the
controversial subject of coeducation before the State Teachers'
Association, which only a few years before had been shocked by the
sound of a woman's voice. Deeply concerned over her ability to write
the speech, she at once appealed to Elizabeth Stanton, "Do you please
mark out a plan and give me as soon as you can...."[92]

[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony, 1856]

Busy with preparations for woman's rights meetings in popular New York
summer resorts, Saratoga Springs, Lake George, Clifton Springs, and
Avon, she grew panicky at the prospect of her impending speech and
dashed off another urgent letter to Mrs. Stanton, underlining it
vigorously for emphasis: "Not a _word written_ ... and mercy only
knows when I can get a moment, and what is _worse_, as the _Lord knows
full well_, is, that if _I get all the time the world has--I can't get
up a decent document_.... It is of but small moment who writes the
Address, but of _vast moment_ that it