I think I was the first woman ever invited to make an address to farmers on farming.  I spoke at Tilton, New Hampshire, to more than three hundred men about woman’s day on the farm.  Insinuated that women need a few days off the farm.  Said a good many other things that were not applauded.  Farmers seemed to know nothing of the advantages of co-operation, and that they were as much slaves (to the middlemen) as ever were the negroes in the South.  They even tried to escape from me at the noise of a dog-fight outside.  I offered to provide a large room for social meetings, to stock it with books of the day, and to send them a lot of magazines and other reading.  Not one ever made the slightest response.  Now they have all and more than I suggested.

When but seventeen, I was sent for to watch with Professor Shurtleff, really a dying man, and left all alone with him in the lower part of the house; he begged about 2 A.M. to be taken up and placed in a rocking-chair near the little open fire.  The light was dim and the effect was very weird.  His wig hung on one bedpost, he had lost one eye, and the patch worn over the empty eye socket had been left on the bureau.  My anxiety was great lest he should slip from the chair and tip into the fire.  I note this to mark the great change since that time.  Neighbours are not now expected to care for the sick and dying, but trained nurses are always sought, and most of them are noble heroines in their profession.

Once also I watched with a poor woman who was dying with cancer.  I tried it for two nights, but the remark of her sister, as I left utterly worn out, “Some folks seem to get all their good things in this life,” deterred me from attempting it again.

Started a school a little later in the ell of our house for my friends among the Hanover children—­forty-five scholars in all.  Kept it going successfully for two years.

I dislike to tell a story so incredible and so against myself as this.  One evening father said, “I am going to my room early tonight, Katie; do not forget to lock the back door.”  I sat reading until quite late, then retired.  About 2.30 A.M., I was startled to hear someone gently open that back door, then take off boots and begin to softly ascend the stairs, which stopped only the width of a narrow hall from my room.  I have been told that I said in trembling tones, “You’re trying to keep pretty quiet down there.”  Next moment I was at the head of the stairs; saw a man whom I did not recognize on the last step but one.  I struck a heavy blow on his chest, saying, “Go down, sir,” and down he tumbled all the way, his boots clanking along by themselves.  Then the door opened, my burglar disappeared, and I went down and locked the back door as I had promised father I would.  I felt less proud of my physical prowess and real courage when my attention was called to a full account of my assault in the college papers of the day.  The young man was not rooming at our