hood when we thrust upon it such a cruel blow. Always since then, in spite of all my faith and the fervors I have known religiously, there is about the thought of death the clammy horror stamped upon me when I saw that face. So I mused much why these things were, and could but wonder, if we had a God so kind, why he should make us fair and sweet as children, bright and happy in youth, serene and strong in middle-life and then send us away like that! I have often heard good people say they "thought it necessary to take their children early to a funeral," but why they must do this. I can not see. If the first sight of death could be some sweet and lovely face, such as I have sometimes beheld since then, the impression of childhood's plastic little nature would surely be far more in keeping with what we believe death really is.

The years went on, and while my sister Mary was always willing, at least, I was strongly averse when "they came to talk religion," as I was wont to call it. I would sit silent and let them have their say, but seldom answered save in monosyllables, in case I must. We could not often go to church because we lived three miles away and the minister had to "preach around" at different appointments. Nor did we have much Sunday-school instruction. I am ashamed that what we had I can not specially recall, except that I learned by heart many chapters in the four Gospels, the first scripture that I ever committed to memory being what mother says is the first she ever learned, "In the beginning was the Word." We always had for Sunday reading the little Sunday-School Advocate, so well known to Methodist Sundayschool children, and the Myrtle, a pretty juvenile paper, the organ of the Free-Will Baptist Sunday-schools. Besides this, we took any number of books, sometimes five at once, out of the Sunday-school library, and nothing was more familiar to me than those words upon the title page, "Revised by D. P. Kidder.” We afterward became acquainted with this honored son of the church when we came to live in Evanston. The things I loved to read, however, in all these books and papers, were stories of adventure, when I could get them-which was seldomhistorical facts, dialogues about nature, of which there were many, and anything that taught me what sort of a world was this of which I had become a resident. "The Slave's Friend," that

8

Singing and Speaking.

earliest book of all my reading, stamped upon me the purpose to help humanity, the sense of brotherhood, of all nations as really one, and of God as the equal Father of all races. This, perhaps, was a better sort of religion than some Sunday-school books would have given. It occurs to me that I have not estimated at its true value that nugget of a little fanatical volume published for children by the Antislavery Society. Some one gave me the "Life of Nathan Dickerman," whose charming face as represented in the frontispiece attracted me immensely, and I think it was for its sake I read the book through.. He was a dear boy, a little saint, and I grieved over his death. The "Children's Pilgrim's Progress was a charm, the sweetest book of all my childhood, and while I loved Christiana and the boys and Mercy, how like a personal Providence grew on my fancy the character of Greatheart! Feeling as I do even now, the impress of those earliest books, I grieve sadly to have missed the helpfulness and sweetness of nature I might have learned from "Little Lord Fauntleroy." Happy children of the present, do not fail to read it, every one!

After all, the best religion of a theoretical kind came to us in our Sunday hour of song. I early learned to play on the melodeon, as it was called, but had no fancy for the piano, and I remember how much meaning, sweet and solemn, we used to find in the deep tones of the instrument and of my father's voice as we sang the hymns we loved.

My first appearance on the stage was in Oberlin, Ohio, at the age of three or four, when my father used to stand me up on a chair and have me sing for guests in my queer little voice, especially after a dinner, as I remember, the song was always this:

"They called me blue-eyed Mary when friends and fortune smiled
But oh, how fortunes vary! I now am sorrow's child;

Kind sir, then take these posies, they're fading like my youth,

But never like these roses shall wither Mary's truth."

When mother stood me up on a chair to speak, it was a more warlike "piece." Father would have something feminine, or else nothing at all; but mother would let me select what I liked, and this is a specimen of my choice at the age of ten years: "O sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased a while,

And Hope, thy sister, ceased like thee to smile,

Almost Named for Queen Victoria.

When leagued oppression poured to Northern wars
Her whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars.
Tumultuous horror brooded o'er the van,
Presaging wrath to Poland-and to man!
Warsaw's last champion from her heights surveyed
Wide o'er the fields a waste of ruin laid-

'Oh, Heaven!' he cried, 'my bleeding country save!
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains,
Rise, fellowmen! our country yet remains!

By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live!—with her to die!'

9

I can recall the stirring of my little heart as the drama of the brief poem proceeded, and how almost impossible it was for me to hold my voice steady so as to give the closing lines. Mother taught me how to speak it, where to put in the volume of sound and the soft, repressed utterance, and as for the pathos I knew where to put that in myself.

In 1868, at Warsaw, the capital of Poland, I stood beside the monument of Kosciusko, and while my tourist comrades read about it in their guide-books, I repeated softly to myself the poem I had learned on the Wisconsin prairies, and looked up with worshipful glance at the statue of the hero for whom my heart ached and my eyes filled with tears when I was but a child.

I came very near being named for Queen Victoria! Indeed, my mother was quite bent upon it. The youthful sovereign had recently come to her throne, and the papers were full of accounts of her earnest Christian character, while the highest expectations were cherished of what she would accomplish for humanity. But my father said it would look as if we, who were the most democratic people in the world, were catering to the popular idea, and, what was worse, regarded royalty with favor, so mother did not have her wish, but was well pleased with the name Frances Elizabeth Caroline, which she and father, in council with my score of uncles, aunts and cousins, concocted after much consultation. Frances was a "fancy name," so father said. Frances