s.
But when, through the door, the women filed, led by Sarah Grimke and
Angelina Weld, the laugh was checked, the intended jeer unuttered, and
deafening applause was given instead. The crowd fell back
respectfully, nearly every man removing his hat and remaining
uncovered while the women passed freely down the hall, deposited their
votes, and departed.

Of course these votes were not counted. There was no expectation that
they would be (though the ticket was elected), but the women had given
a practical proof of their earnestness, and though one man said, in
consequence of this movement, he would sell his house two thousand
dollars cheaper than he would have done before, and another declared
he would give his away if the thing was done again, and still another
wished he might _die_ if the women were going to vote, the women
themselves were satisfied with their first step, and more than ever
determined to march courageously on until the citadel of man's
prejudices was conquered.

The following summer, Sarah Grimke, believing that much good might be
accomplished by the circulation of John Stuart Mill's "Subjection of
Women," made herself an agent for the sale of the book, and traversed
hill and dale, walking miles daily to accomplish her purpose. She thus
succeeded in placing more than one hundred and fifty copies in the
hands of the women of Hyde Park and the vicinity, in spite of the
ignorance, narrowness, heartlessness, and slavery which, she says, she
had ample opportunity to deplore. The profits of her sales were given
to the _Woman's Journal_.

Under date of May 25, 1871, she writes:--

"I have been travelling all through our town and vicinity on foot, to
get signers to a petition to Congress for woman suffrage. It is not a
pleasant work, often subjecting me to rudeness and coldness; but we
are so frequently taunted with: 'Women don't want the ballot,' that we
are trying to get one hundred thousand names of women who do want it,
to reply to this taunt."

But the work which enlisted this indefatigable woman's warmest
sympathies, and which was the last active charity in which she
engaged, was that of begging cast-off clothing for the destitute
freedmen of Charleston and Florida. Accounts reaching her of their
wretched condition through successive failures of crops, she set to
work with her old-time energy to do what she could for their relief.
She literally went from house to house, and from store to store,
pr