The Memoirs of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Eighty Years and More. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ we did, wondering what the secret could be. At last, opening a door, he ushered us into a large room, in the center of which sat a beautiful quadroon girl, about eighteen years of age. Addressing her, he said:

      "Harriet, I have brought all my young cousins to see you. I want you to make good abolitionists of them by telling them the history of your life—what you have seen and suffered in slavery."

      Turning to us he said:

      "Harriet has just escaped from her master, who is visiting in Syracuse, and is on her way to Canada. She will start this evening and you may never have another opportunity of seeing a slave girl face to face, so ask her all you care to know of the system of slavery."

      For two hours we listened to the sad story of her childhood and youth, separated from all her family and sold for her beauty in a New Orleans market when but fourteen years of age. The details of her story I need not repeat. The fate of such girls is too well known to need rehearsal. We all wept together as she talked, and, when Cousin Gerrit returned to summon us away, we needed no further education to make us earnest abolitionists.

      Dressed as a Quakeress, Harriet started at twilight with one of Mr. Smith's faithful clerks in a carriage for Oswego, there to cross the lake to Canada. The next day her master and the marshals from Syracuse were on her track in Peterboro, and traced her to Mr. Smith's premises. He was quite gracious in receiving them, and, while assuring them that there was no slave there, he said that they were at liberty to make a thorough search of the house and grounds. He invited them to stay and dine and kept them talking as long as possible, as every hour helped Harriet to get beyond their reach; for, although she had eighteen hours the start of them, yet we feared some accident might have delayed her. The master was evidently a gentleman, for, on Mr. Smith's assurance that Harriet was not there, he made no search, feeling that they could not do so without appearing to doubt his word. He was evidently surprised to find an abolitionist so courteous and affable, and it was interesting to hear them in conversation, at dinner, calmly discussing the problem of slavery, while public sentiment was at white heat on the question. They shook hands warmly at parting and expressed an equal interest in the final adjustment of that national difficulty.

      In due time the clerk returned with the good news that Harriet was safe with friends in a good situation in Canada. Mr. Smith then published an open letter to the master in the New York Tribune, saying "that he would no doubt rejoice to know that his slave Harriet, in whose fate he felt so deep an interest, was now a free woman, safe under the shadow of the British throne. I had the honor of entertaining her under my roof, sending her in my carriage to Lake Ontario, just eighteen hours before your arrival: hence my willingness to have you search my premises."

      Like the varied combinations of the kaleidoscope, the scenes in our social life at Peterboro were continually changing from grave to gay. Some years later we had a most hilarious occasion at the marriage of Mary Cochrane, sister of General John Cochrane, to Chapman Biddle, of Philadelphia. The festivities, which were kept up for three days, involved most elaborate preparations for breakfasts, dinners, etc., there being no Delmonico's in that remote part of the country. It was decided in family council that we had sufficient culinary talent under the roof to prepare the entire menu of substantials and delicacies, from soup and salmon to cakes and creams. So, gifted ladies and gentlemen were impressed into the service. The Fitzhughs all had a natural talent for cooking, and chief among them was Isabella, wife of a naval officer,—Lieutenant Swift of Geneva,—who had made a profound study of all the authorities from Archestratus, a poet in Syracuse, the most famous cook among the Greeks, down to our own Miss Leslie. Accordingly she was elected manager of the occasion, and to each one was assigned the specialty in which she claimed to excel. Those who had no specialty were assistants to those who had. In this humble office—"assistant at large"—I labored throughout.

      Cooking is a high art. A wise Egyptian said, long ago: "The degree of taste and skill manifested by a nation in the preparation of food may be regarded as to a very considerable extent proportioned to its culture and refinement." In early times men, only, were deemed capable of handling fire, whether at the altar or the hearthstone. We read in the Scriptures that Abraham prepared cakes of fine meal and a calf tender and good, which, with butter and milk, he set before the three angels in the plains of Mamre. We are told, too, of the chief butler and chief baker as officers in the household of King Pharaoh. I would like to call the attention of my readers to the dignity of this profession, which some young women affect to despise. The fact that angels eat, shows that we may be called upon in the next sphere to cook even for cherubim and seraphim. How important, then, to cultivate one's gifts in that direction!

      With such facts before us, we stirred and pounded, whipped and ground, coaxed the delicate meats from crabs and lobsters and the succulent peas from the pods, and grated corn and cocoanut with the same cheerfulness and devotion that we played Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" on the piano, the Spanish Fandango on our guitars, or danced the minuet, polka, lancers, or Virginia reel.

      During the day of the wedding, every stage coach was crowded with guests from the North, South, East, and West, and, as the twilight deepened, carriages began to roll in with neighbors and friends living at short distances, until the house and grounds were full. A son of Bishop Coxe, who married the tall and stately sister of Roscoe Conkling, performed the ceremony. The beautiful young bride was given away by her Uncle Gerrit. The congratulations, the feast, and all went off with fitting decorum in the usual way. The best proof of the excellence of our viands was that they were all speedily swept from mortal view, and every housewife wanted a recipe for something.

      As the grand dinner was to come off the next day, our thoughts now turned in that direction. The responsibility rested heavily on the heads of the chief actors, and they reported troubled dreams and unduly early rising. Dear Belle Swift was up in season and her white soup stood serenely in a tin pan, on an upper shelf, before the town clock struck seven. If it had not taken that position so early, it might have been incorporated with higher forms of life than that into which it eventually fell. Another artist was also on the wing early, and in pursuit of a tin pan in which to hide her precious compound, she unwittingly seized this one, and the rich white soup rolled down her raven locks like the oil on Aaron's beard, and enveloped her in a veil of filmy whiteness. I heard the splash and the exclamation of surprise and entered the butler's pantry just in time to see the heiress of the Smith estate standing like a statue, tin pan in hand, soup in her curls, her eyebrows and eyelashes,—collar, cuffs, and morning dress saturated,—and Belle, at a little distance, looking at her and the soup on the floor with surprise and disgust depicted on every feature. The tableau was inexpressibly comical, and I could not help laughing outright; whereupon Belle turned on me, and, with indignant tones, said, "If you had been up since four o'clock making that soup you would not stand there like a laughing monkey, without the least feeling of pity!" Poor Lizzie was very sorry, and would have shed tears, but they could not penetrate that film of soup. I tried to apologize, but could only laugh the more when I saw Belle crying and Lizzie standing as if hoping that the soup might be scraped off her and gathered from the floor and made to do duty on the occasion.

      After breakfast, ladies and gentlemen, alike in white aprons, crowded into the dining room and kitchen, each to perform the allotted task. George Biddle of Philadelphia and John B. Miller of Utica, in holiday spirits, were irrepressible—everywhere at the same moment, helping or hindering as the case might be. Dear Belle, having only partially recovered from the white-soup catastrophe, called Mr. Biddle to hold the ice-cream freezer while she poured in the luscious compound she had just prepared. He held it up without resting it on anything, while Belle slowly poured in the cream. As the freezer had no indentations round the top or rim to brace the thumbs and fingers, when it grew suddenly heavier his hands slipped and down went the whole thing, spattering poor Belle and spoiling a beautiful pair of gaiters in which, as she had very pretty feet, she took a laudable pride. In another corner sat Wealthea Backus, grating some cocoanut. While struggling in that operation, John Miller, feeling hilarious, was annoying her in divers ways; at length she drew the grater СКАЧАТЬ