d sisters and daughters did such
work often, while the "men folks" pitched horseshoes to work off their
surplus vitality. Lack of strength was no reason why a woman should fail
in her duty, for when one fell at her post, there was always another to
take her place.

Up to this time mother had left me to settle my troubles, but now, she
told me I must turn and demand justice; that generosity was more than
thrown away; that I never could live with my husband and bear his
neglect and unkindness and that of his family. I must leave him, defend
myself, or die. That I should have been expected to gather apples and
dig potatoes, filled her with indignation. She advised me to stay with
her and refuse to see him, but I shuddered to think it had come to this
in one short year, and felt that all would yet be well. So I went to
live in the house he provided for me, his mother furnished my supplies,
and he came once a week to see me.

Here let me say, that in my twenty years of married life, my conflicts
were all spiritual; that there never was a time when my husband's strong
right arm would not be tempered to infantile gentleness to tend me in
illness, or when he hesitated to throw himself between me and danger.
Over streams and other places impassible to me, he carried me, but could
not understand how so frail a thing could be so obstinate.

CHAPTER VIII.

FITTING MYSELF INTO MY SPHERE.--AGE, 22, 23.

During all my girlhood I saw no pictures, no art gallery, no studio, but
had learned to feel great contempt for my own efforts at picture-making.
A traveling artist stopped in Wilkinsburg and painted some portraits; we
visited his studio, and a new world opened to me. Up to that time
portrait painting had seemed as inaccessible as the moon--a sublimity I
no more thought of reaching than a star; but when I saw a portrait on
the easel, a palette of paints and some brushes, I was at home in a new
world, at the head of a long vista of faces which I must paint; but the
new aspiration was another secret to keep.

Bard, the wagon-maker, made me a stretcher, and with a yard of
unbleached muslin, some tacks and white lead, I made a canvas. In the
shop were white lead, lampblack, king's yellow and red lead, with oil
and turpentine. I watched Bard mix paints, and concluded I wanted brown.
Years before, I heard of brown umber, so I got umber and some brushes
and begun my husband's portrait. I hid it when he was there or I heard
any o