too busy to eat any
dinner, and I greatly doubt whether she had eaten any luncheon at noon.
She had been on her feet for hours at a time, and she had held numerous
discussions with other women she wished to inspire to special effort.
Yet, after it all, here she was laying out our campaigns for years
ahead, foreseeing everything, forgetting nothing, and sweeping me with
her in her flight toward our common goal, until I, who am not easily
carried off my feet, experienced an almost dizzy sense of exhilaration.

Suddenly she stopped, looked at the gas-jets paling in the morning light
that filled the room, and for a fleeting instant seemed surprised. In
the next she had dismissed from her mind the realization that we had
talked all night. Why should we not talk all night? It was part of our
work. She threw off the enveloping rug and rose.

"I must dress now," she said, briskly. "I've called a committee meeting
before the morning session."

On her way to the door nature smote her with a rare reminder, but even
then she did not realize that it was personal. "Perhaps," she remarked,
tentatively, "you ought to have a cup of coffee."

That was "Aunt Susan." And in the eighteen years which followed I had
daily illustrations of her superiority to purely human weaknesses. To
her the hardships we underwent later, in our Western campaigns for woman
suffrage, were as the airiest trifles. Like a true soldier, she could
snatch a moment of sleep or a mouthful of food where she found it, and
if either was not forthcoming she did not miss it. To me she was an
unceasing inspiration--the torch that illumined my life. We went through
some difficult years together--years when we fought hard for each inch
of headway we gained--but I found full compensation for every effort in
the glory of working with her for the Cause that was first in both our
hearts, and in the happiness of being her friend. Later I shall describe
in more detail the suffrage campaigns and the National and International
councils in which we took part; now it is of her I wish to write--of her
bigness, her many-sidedness, her humor, her courage, her quickness, her
sympathy, her understanding, her force, her supreme common-sense, her
selflessness; in short, of the rare beauty of her nature as I learned to
know it.

Like most great leaders, she took one's best work for granted, and was
chary with her praise; and even when praise was given it usually came by
indirect routes.