e was
baking and sewing, she assured Susan, but she had no time for
research. Susan produced the facts for Mrs. Stanton, and while she
worked on the speech, Susan went from door to door during the cold
blustery days of December and January 1854 to get signatures on her
petitions for married women's property rights and woman suffrage. Some
of the women signed, but more of them slammed the door in her face,
declaring indignantly that they had all the rights they wanted. Yet at
this time a father had the legal authority to apprentice or will away
a child without the mother's consent and an employer was obliged by
law to pay a wife's wages to her husband.

In spite of the fact that the bloomer costume made it easier for her
to get about in the snowy streets, she now found it a real burden
because it always attracted unfavorable attention. Boys jeered at her
and she was continually conscious of the amused, critical glances of
the men and women she met. She longed to take it off and wear an
inconspicuous trailing skirt, but if she had been right to put it on,
it would be weakness to take it off. By this time Elizabeth Stanton
had given it up except in her own home, convinced that it harmed the
cause and that the physical freedom it gave was not worth the price.
"I hope you have let down a dress and a petticoat," she now wrote
Susan. "The cup of ridicule is greater than you can bear. It is not
wise, Susan, to use up so much energy and feeling in that way. You
can put them to better use. I speak from experience."[44]

[Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her son, Henry]

Lucy Stone too was wavering and was thinking of having her next dress
made long. The three women corresponded about it, and Lucy as well as
Mrs. Stanton urged Susan to give up the bloomer. With these entreaties
ringing in her ears, Susan set out for Albany in February 1854 to make
final arrangements for the convention. On the streets in Albany, in
the printing offices, and at the capitol, men stared boldly at her,
some calling out hilariously, "Here comes my bloomer." She endured it
bravely until her work was done, but at night alone in her room at
Lydia Mott's she poured out her anguish in letters to Lucy. "Here I am
known only," she wrote, "as one of the women who ape men--coarse,
brutal men! Oh, I can not, can not bear it any longer."[45]

Even so she did not let down the hem of her skirt, but wore her
bloomer costume heroically during the entire co