A test suit as to my right to support was decided in 1859, and in it a judge in my native city, charged the jury that:  “If a wife have no dress and her husband refuse to provide one, she may purchase one—­a plain dress—­not silk, or lace, or any extravagance; if she have no shoes, she may get a pair; if she be sick and he refuse to employ a physician, she may send for one, and get the medicine he may prescribe; and for these necessaries the husband is liable, but here his liability ceases.”

The suit was about goods I had purchased by my lawyer’s advice—­two black silk dresses, a thirty dollar shawl, a dozen pairs black kid gloves, stockings, flannel, linen, half dozen yards white Brussels lace, any one of which would have outlawed the bill, even if I had gone in an Eden costume to make the purchase; but being clothed when I made my appearance at the counter, the merchant could not plead that I “had no dress,” and lost his case.

In a subsequent suit carried up to the Supreme Court and decided in ’68, it was proved that my husband had forbidden our merchant to credit me on his account, and the merchant’s books presented in court showed that for twelve years he had kept two separate accounts, one against my husband and one against me.  On his were charged clothing for himself, mother, brothers and employes, common groceries, etc.; while on mine were entered all my clothing, all high-priced tea, white sugar, etc., all tableware, fine cutlery, table linen, bedding, curtains and towels; on his were, credits for farm products; on mine, only cash; and he was credited with butter and eggs on the same day that I was charged with bed-ticking and towels.  My personal expenses from Nov. 18, ’36, the date of our marriage, until Nov. 18, ’56, twenty years, averaged less than fifty dollars a year.  All my husband’s labor for all his life, and mine for twenty years, with a large part of my separate property, had gone to swell his mother’s estate, on the proceeds of which she kept her carriage and servants until she died, aged ninety-four, while I earned a living for myself and his only child.

I left Pittsburg with my baby about the 20th of May, ’57, and went by boat to St. Paul.  Before leaving, I went to settle with Mr. Riddle and say goodbye, and found him much troubled.  He said: 

“Why is it I have known nothing of all this?  I did not dream there was anything wrong in your domestic relations, and may have been selfish and inconsiderate.”

My husband, mine no more, came upon the boat while she lay at the wharf, held baby on his knee and wept over her; when the last bell rang, he bade me good-bye; carried her to the gangway, held her to the last moment, then placed her in my arms, sprang ashore and hurried up the wharf.  He would, I think, have carried her off, but that he knew she would break his heart crying for mother before I could get to her.

He had once taken her away in a fit of anger and walked the floor with her most of the night, seriously alarmed for her life, and could not venture on that experiment again.  He loved her most tenderly, and his love was as tenderly returned.  Since, as a duty to her, I was careful to teach her to “honor thy father” on earth as well as in heaven.