the
sash with him. He ran into his cage, and that was his last taste of
liberty; but he lived a year after, chained in a corn crib. Every
evening in the gloaming he would pace back and forth, raise his kingly
head, utter his piercing shriek, then stop and hark for a response; walk
again, shriek and listen, while the bears would bellow an answer.

The bears, too, were often exciting and interesting. Once I rescued a
toddling child when running towards "big bear," and not more than two
feet from where he stood waiting with hungry eyes. At another time, they
both broke loose, on a bitter cold day when I was alone in the house. I
defended myself with fire, meeting them at every door and window with a
hickory brand. I wondered as they went round and round the house, if
they would stop in the chimney corner, and make the acquaintance of Tom;
but they took no notice of him, and after they had eaten several buckets
of porridge, they concluded there was nothing in the house they wanted,
so became good natured and went and climbed a tree.

Such schoolmasters must have imparted a flavor of savagery to my Mexican
war letters, which attracted readers as they did visitors.

CHAPTER XX.

RIGHTS OF MARRIED WOMEN.

After mother's death, I prosecuted to a successful issue a suit for the
recovery of the house in which I was born. It stood on Water street,
near Market, and our lawyer, Walter Lowrie, afterwards supreme judge,
was to have given us possession of the property on the 1st of July,
1845, which would add eight hundred dollars a year to the income of my
sister and myself. But on the 10th of April, the great fire swept away
the building and left a lot bearing ground rent. Property rose and we
had a good offer for the lease. Every one was willing to sell, but the
purchasers concluded that both our husbands must sign the deed. To this
no objection was made, and we met, in William Shinn's office, when my
husband refused to sign unless my share of the purchase money were paid
to him.

Mother's will was sacred to me. The money he proposed to put in
improvements on the Swissvale mills. These, in case of his death before
his mother, would go to his brothers. I had not even a dower right in
the estate, and already the proceeds of my labor and income from my
separate estate were put upon it. I refused to give him the money, and
on my way alone from the lawyer's office it occurred to me that all the
advances made by humanity had