to the transient preacher and for prayer-meetings, then for class-meetings and for preaching, and thus she entered upon her life work, and for more than fifty years those doors stood open to Methodist preachers. Was it any inferior heroism which would prepare that single room, at once parlor and bed-room and kitchen, for prayer-meetings, and then, after the meeting was over, clean up after the filthy tobacco chewers who not only defiled the floor, but sometimes, from sheer devilishness, would besmear the walls? Later, and when an addition was built to the house, the best room was specially fitted up for a preacher's room, with its bed, and table, and chair, and fire-place, and then another bed was added, because one bed, though carrying double, was often insufficient for the demands. That room was never occupied for twenty-five years by any member of the family, for it could never be certain, even at bed time, that some belated traveler would not call for entertainment before morning.

A panorama of that heroic woman's work for twenty-five years would give new ideas to many of this generation of the demands made upon the women of that heroic period, and how they were met. For many years either Bishop Soule or Bishop Roberts, or both, were frequent guests, going to or returning from one of their Conferences, and Presiding Elders Griffeth, and Strange, and Wiley, and Havens, for twenty years never stopped in Brookville with any other family, whether attending our own quarterly meetings or passing through to some other; and for more than twenty years the bi-weekly rounds of the circuit preacher never failed to bring a guest, while the junior preacher, always an unmarried man, made it his headquarters, and spent his rest weeks in that preachers' room. There John P. Durbin studied English grammar without a teacher, and Russel Bigelow, and John F. Wright, and James B. Finley were frequent guests. The new preacher, with his family, always stopped with us until some house somewhere on the circuit could be rented, for it was before the days of parsonages, and preachers moving through to their circuits stayed over night, and often over Sunday, with their hired team and all. This, too, at a period when in addition to the duties of housewifery as now understood, spinning, and weaving, and knitting, and making, and milking, and churning constituted no small item of domestic affairs, and usually without the intervention of the modern appliance called "help." To these were to be added a quarterly meeting once a year for a circuit that embraced nearly half of the present Connersville district, when for years no other door was opened to entertain a single one of those who came from all parts of the circuit, and a camp-meeting once a year, with all the burdens that old-fashioned camp-meetings fastened upon tent-holders. But this was not all—it was hardly half. For a decade or more after the opening of the "New Purchase," not a week passed that some one, purporting to be a Methodist preacher, did not claim the rites of hospitality as he was going from Ohio or Kentucky to the "New Purchase" to enter land or to see the country. These, with an eye to economy, always inquired for the next "Methodist tavern," and they never failed to avail themselves of the information obtained. In many respects these were sometimes burdensome. They were not only strangers, but they were traveling on business purely secular, and they were often irregular and called at unseasonable hours. One of these calls I had occasion to remember. It was in the summer of 1825, and before the days of lucifer matches. If the fire died out, there was no starting another without getting a live coal from some neighbor. Such a calamity had occurred at our house, and I was dispatched to the nearest neighbor's for a coal, only to return with the intelligence that her fire was out, too. "But why did you not go to the next neighbor?" asked my mother. "Go, and keep on going, till you get what you go for," was the command, and I went. The next day was wash day, and the family dinner had been served, and the dishes put away, and the wash tub resumed, when two strange preachers rode up and asked for dinner. What was to be done? In addition to the hindrance in washing, there was not a crust of bread in the house, and even if the travelers had time to wait, there was no time to spare from washing to bake bread. In the emergency I was dispatched to the nearest neighbor to borrow a loaf, but her cupboard was bare, too. Remembering the instructions, "Keep going until you get what you go for," I started at double quick to the next neighbor, and to the next, and the next, for three-quarters of an hour. I must have zig-zagged several miles, only to return with the sad news that there was not a loaf of bread in the town. Meanwhile my mother had taken in the situation, and when I got home exhausted and disgusted, the travelers were eating their dinner, a skillet full of biscuits having been baked at short notice. Soon they were on their horses, and the work at the wash tub was resumed. Though the occasion was a trying one, not a word of murmur escaped the lips of that heroic woman, for she endured as seeing the Invisible. Was she not a hero?

During those years of special hardships, my mother had the companionship and aid of a younger sister, a bright, red-headed girl, as fleet of foot as the mountain gazelle, with a voice, at least to me, as sweet as the melody of angels. Through the misty past of more than sixty years, there comes the memory of several incidents illustrative of both her moral and physical heroism. On one occasion, not unlike that just referred to, she was called to set aside her spinning-wheel just when the weaver was clamoring for the yarn which was to go into the beautiful home-made flannel, from which her new Sunday dress was to be made, and which she had promised to furnish that day. More than an hour of precious time had been consumed when she resumed her spinning, striking up in her inimitable treble:

Young as I was, I had sympathized with her in her loss of time, feeling that at least on that occasion it was an imposition that entire strangers should call at that unreasonable hour for a dinner, because they could get it free, but her heart seemed to be in the song, and as she whirled the wheel still more vigorously, and stepped mere rapidly, as if to make up lost time, she came to

It seemed to my childish imagination that she was triumphing over her difficulties and defying toil and pain, with words specially adapted to her "up and down," the to and fro movement in spinning. It was an exhibition of moral heroism, not often surpassed by martyr or confessor. But she was a physical hero as well. I saw her tested once at a camp-meeting, when she was about twenty years of age. My father had invited a number of young men, who were standing around, to eat dinner at his table on Sunday. Already more than fifty had eaten. When these young men were seated her eye caught one, to whom she walked without consulting any person, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, she said in a distinct voice: "Sir, you can not eat dinner at this table. You were with that crowd of rowdies last night that held a mock sacrament with whisky, and if you do not leave in a second, I'll help you leave." One glance at her eye was sufficient, and he left at once. The deed was the more heroic because the unfortunate youth belonged to a family that was much respected. The great fighting preacher, Havens, never displayed more heroism in any of his encounters with the roughs of that period.