All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

“Yes,” I answered, “he is a little gay, but I like it. Jane are you going to Liverpool to see us off. If so, you could bring Mother back with you.”

“I asked Mother about the time of sailing,” she replied. “Mother said it would be about noon. That renders it impossible. I have so many duties at home, and I am a late riser. I think it is a great folly to make a parting that is a grief to both of us, hours longer than it need be.”

“You are right, Jane,” I answered. “We will say good-bye here,” and I kissed her fondly; for I loved her. We had a thousand memories in common, and she was inextricably bound up with my happy early life. I did not see her again for nearly forty years, and I have sometimes wished I had not seen her then; for the long slow years had brought her many sorrows, and had dealt hardly with the beautiful Jane of my youthful memories. But it was evident to me that she lived among things unseen, as well as things seen, and that the mystical appetite for religious service, which she possessed in her youth, had grown steadily. She valued things at their eternal, not their temporal worth. I was then in the first flush of my literary success, but I felt humbled before her. She was still my eldest sister.

After Jane had gone, we talked the midnight away but I was very weary and fell fast asleep in my chair, Mother’s low, soft monotone in my ears. For the last time, she had charmed me to sleep. I slept that night until the daylight woke me. Then there was a little hurry, and we only reached the Atlantic half an hour before she sailed. We were all cheerful; Mother had set that tone for our last hours together. “I shall not shed a tear,” she said. “Robert has promised me that you shall come to visit us in two years, and he always keeps his word.” Like a little child she accepted a promise; she never thought of its being broken. She was delighted with our cabin, and delighted with the ship, and was talking comfortably to me about the quickness with which two years would pass, when there was the ringing of a bell and an officer politely reminded her, that the call was for those going on shore. She started to her feet with a little cry – a cry like that of a wounded animal – I shall never forget it, and then sobbed,

“Milly! Milly! Two years, dear!”

I could not speak. I cannot write it. They led her away. In a few moments we were parted forever in this world.

I stumbled down to my cabin, and found Robert with the children. There were tears in his eyes, but none in mine. I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his mother, but I did not find tears till I was alone with God, and had my baby at my breast. For Fate or Force seemed closing around me, and but one way stood before me – the way this man I had chosen for my husband, should choose to go. He had already taken me from my father, my mother, my sisters, and my home; the friends of my youth, the land of my birth, what, and where next? Then I glanced at the babe in my arms, and she smiled at me, and with that love and hope counseled me, for in my soul I knew:

“’Twould all be well, no need to care,
Though how it would, and when, and where,
I could not see, nor yet declare.
In spite of dreams, in spite of thought,
’Tis not in vain, and not for naught,
The good wind blows, the good ship goes,
Though where it takes me, no one knows.”

Very soon Robert, who had carried Mary to the deck with him, returned and I was able to meet him with a smile. “It will be lunch time in ten minutes, Milly,” he said.

“I will not go to lunch today,” I answered. “They will bring me something for Mary and myself, and after lunch we shall try to sleep. So, Robert, do not disturb us till four o’clock.” However, after lunch I was far from sleep, though the children were good enough to let it take care of them. Then I sent for the stewardess and asked her to hire me a woman from among the steerage passengers, who could assist me in nursing and caring for them. She said, “That can be quickly done;” then she pointed out a siding for the sofa, which slipped easily into places prepared for it, and so made a safe cot for Mary to sleep in.

In two or three hours I had a proper nurse, had put the cabin into comfortable order, and had made all other necessary arrangements for as regular a life as was possible on shipboard. Then I was tired, too tired to dress for dinner, but when the gloaming came I went to the deck with Robert. The blessed sea breeze, full of the potent magic savors of ozone and iodine, soon lifted up my weary body, and my soul and my flesh caught hope and courage, and I talked bravely with Robert of the new life before us.

An hour later I saw a little company gathering near us, and as they turned their faces to the vanishing land, a clear vibrant voice full of pathos started Thomas Haynes Bayly’s unforgettable song, “Isle of Beauty, Fare Thee Well.” They sang it with wonderful feeling, and drew a silent crowd of listeners around them. And as they sang my sorrow seemed to escape on the sweet, sad melody, to vanish, to flutter away, and I went back to our cabin, saying softly as I went:

“Land where all my loved ones dwell,
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!”

I found Mary sleeping, but the baby was awake, and I thought it would then be well to carry out an intention I had cherished for some time. I sent away the nurse, and asked Robert to unfasten the small trunk which we had with us. As soon as this was done I said, “I want some night clothing out, Robert; will you hold Lilly for a few minutes?”

He looked at me inquiringly, and said, “Lilly! Is it to be that? She was baptized Eliza.”

“I know,” I answered, “but think a moment, Robert. That name would soon become a trial. It is too full of unhappy memories. The child might suffer in more ways than one from being linked with it, and your mother will never know.”

“Perhaps you are right. We might love her too much, or go to the other extreme. But why Lilly?”

“Because Lilly is the Scotch abbreviation for both Elizabeth and Eliza. So she will retain her baptismal name.”

“Very well,” he replied, “that is a good reason for Lilly.”

So from that hour to this, my second daughter has been called Lilly.

CHAPTER XI

FROM CHICAGO TO TEXAS

“Our Happiness foundered by one evil Soul.”

…

“God accomplishes that which is beyond expectation.”

“Whatever we gain through suffering is good; we have bought it; we have paid the price.”

One voyage across the ocean is very much like another, and the majority of my readers have doubtless taken several. Some may even remember the old steamship Atlantic, for I think she was making her regular trips when the war of 1860 began. The great difference between voyages rests not with the ships, but with the people you meet on them. We met good and evil fortune on the Atlantic, and Robert perversely chose the latter. The good fortune came in a Mr. and Mrs. Curtis of Boston. They had been to Geneva, Switzerland, to place their sons in some famous school there, and were returning home. It is fifty-nine years since we traveled together, but I have the clearest and pleasantest remembrance of them. Mr. Curtis and Robert were much together, and Mrs. Curtis sat a great deal with me and my children, helping me to take care of them, and telling me about Boston housekeeping and social life. I was charmed with her descriptions, and longed to settle in Boston beside her.

Our evil fortune was represented by a man of about sixty years of age whose name I will not write. He had a military title and reputation, had been Governor of his state, was very rich, and had great political influence. He sat opposite to us at the dining-table, and I noticed him the first meal that I ate in the saloon. For he watched Robert with eyes like those the evil angels may look out with, and Robert appeared quite unconscious of the hatred in their glances. But I said nothing about my observations, for within the past few days I had discovered that there was one phase of life, in which my husband was a stranger to me. I had known him hitherto in a very narrow domestic and social circle. I saw him now among business men, lawyers, financiers, and men of the world and fashion. I was astonished. I wondered how I had dared to contradict and advise, and even snub a man whom every one appeared to court and admire; for I can truly say, he held the crowd in his open hand.

For several days his enemy watched him, then I saw them frequently together and apparently on the most friendly terms. One afternoon when I was on deck and watching them in eager conversation, Mrs. Curtis sat down at my side. She looked at them, and then at me, and asked, “Do you like that acquaintanceship?”

“No,” I answered. “He is a bad man.”

“The Governor?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you should not say that – you may not be right.”

“I am right,” I replied. “I think he knows every sin that has a name.”

“I wish,” she continued, “that Mr. Barr did not listen so eagerly to him. We were in hopes of your coming to Boston, but now that he has caught the Western fever, nothing will cure him but an experience of the West. Mr. Curtis thinks you are both unfit for Chicago.”

“I know we are.”

“Poor child!” she exclaimed. “I intended to have taken such good care of you.”

Then tears sprang to my eyes. I leaned my head against her breast, and if she had been an Englishwoman, she would have kissed me.

It was, alas, quite true that Robert had fallen completely under the spell of his enemy. His lure had been the wonderful West, which Robert was now determined to visit, before we definitely settled, “We will go as far as Buffalo, Milly,” he said to me, “see Niagara, and cross into Canada. We may find just what we like in Canada. If so, we shall still be under the British flag. If we do not like Canada, then we will go westward to Chicago.”

I pleaded for a trial of Boston, but Robert would not listen to me. “Every one on the ship says, ‘Go west,’” he replied. “Let us see with our own eyes, and judge for ourselves.”

I was grieved and offended at the time, but I can understand now the influence primarily working against Boston. He longed for rest and travel and change. All his life he had been kept strictly to his lessons, and his business. He had never had a holiday, unless his mother and sister and her children were with him, and this going where he liked, seeing what he liked, doing what he liked, and resting whenever he wished to rest, possessed irresistible charms. He could not deny himself. He could not go to Boston and settle at once to business of some kind. I do not blame him. He had had no youth. He was naturally poetic and romantic, but while the modern spirit of travel and recreation was just beginning to make both age and youth restless and expectant.

“Even his childhood knew nothing better,
Than bills of creditor and debtor – ”

Yet at that time I could not reason thus, and the refusal of the kind offers made us by Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, appeared to me a wilful flinging away of good fortune. Also, I apprehended nothing but danger and sorrow from any step taken on the advice of a man, whom nothing could make me trust. Alas! an apprehended danger can not always be a defended one. I believed firmly that heaven chalked the line that brought us to New York. I saw no white road leading us to Chicago. I felt that in turning away from Boston we had lost opportunity’s golden tide.

On the fifth of September, A.D. 1853, we landed in New York. The Atlantic’s dock was on the East River, and we went to a large hotel some where in the lower part of the city. I think just below Trinity Church. Robert was like a boy out on a holiday. Everything delighted him. We rode about seeing what there was to see, and among other things the Crystal Palace; but as we had spent three weeks at the original in London in 1851, we were disappointed. However, I was greatly pleased with the dry goods stores and astonished to find dresses ready made, more so when I discovered I could slip comfortably into them, and that they looked as if they had been expressly made for me. It was always such a labor to have a dress made in England, that I laughed with delight at this sensible convenience, and bought many more than I needed. I was afraid I might never have such another opportunity.

As I call to remembrance the events of those few days in New York of 1853, I smile and sigh over our ignorance and our happiness. For instance when driving about the city one day, I saw exposed for sale what appeared to me some wonderfully large plums. I asked Robert to buy some, and he did so but when I tasted them, I was astonished and disappointed. They did not taste like plums; they did not taste nice at all. In fact they were tomatoes, and I was about to throw them away when the Irishman who was driving us asked for them, saying, “They would be fine with his supper’s beefsteak.” Then I laughed, for I remembered Mr. Pickwick and what came of his beefsteak and tomato sauce. But I had really never before seen a tomato, for in the North of England they could not ripen, and I think it is only under glass they ripen in the southern counties. At this day they are plentiful in all parts of England, but they are imported from the Channel Islands and the Continent.

Such small blunders were common enough, and gave us much amusement; for seeing that I could not alter Robert’s arrangements, I entered into all that interested him with that simplicity of heart, which accepts the inevitable and enjoys it. Besides, I was then only twenty-two years old, and twenty-two has hopeful eyes, and sees things on their best side. But in less than a week, we had exhausted the New York of 1853, and we went to Buffalo. I remember our ride up the banks of the Hudson very well, but no kind angel whispered me then, that I should, after thirty-five years had come and gone, make my home there.