he kitchens of this land!" In those days the housewife
could not step around the corner and buy for two cents a cake of yeast
which insured good bread, but the process of yeast-making was long and
difficult and not well understood by the average housekeeper, so a
substitute was found in "salt risings," and a heavy indigestible mass
generally resulted. White flour was little used and was of a poor
quality. Baking powder was unknown and all forms of cakes and warm
bread were made with sour milk and soda, easily ruined by too much or
too little of the latter. In no particular did the table compare
favorably with that of modern families.

[Illustration: THE FARM-HOME NEAR ROCHESTER, N.Y., 1845-65.]

The anti-slavery and woman's rights lecturers always accepted private
hospitality when offered, for reasons of economy and, as many of the
people who favored these reforms were seeking light in other directions
also, they were very apt to find themselves the guests of "cranks" upon
the food question and were thus made the subject of most of the
experiments in vogue at that period. On one occasion Miss Anthony,
Aaron Powell and Oliver Johnson were entertained by prominent and
well-to-do people in a town near New York, who had not a mouthful for
any of the three meals except nuts, apples and coarse bran stirred in
water and baked. At the end of one day the men ignominiously fled and
left her to stay over Sunday and hold the Monday meeting. She lived
through it but on Tuesday started for New York and never stopped till
she reached Delmonico's, where she revelled in a porterhouse steak and
a pot of coffee.

During these winter meetings all of the men broke down physically and
their letters were filled with complaints of their heads, their backs,
their lungs, their throats and their eyes. Garrison wrote at one time:
"I hope to be present at the meeting but I can not foresee what will be
my spinal condition at that time, and I could not think of appearing as
a 'Garrisonian Abolitionist' without a backbone." Miss Anthony never
lost a day or missed an engagement, although it may be imagined that
she had many hours of weariness when she would have been glad to drop
the burden for a while. On March 17 she writes: "How happy I am to lay
my head on my own home pillow once more after a long four months,
scarcely stopping a second night under one roof." Mr. May wrote in
behalf of the committee: "We rejoice with you in the success of your
m