mother's presence, while she felt that in this, as in any church-joining
conflict, only God could help me, and stood aloof.

To me the sun was darkened, and the moon refused her light. I knew "that
jealous God" who claimed the supreme love of his creatures, was
scourging me for making an idol and bowing down before it--for loving my
husband. I knew it was all just and clung to the Almighty arm, with the
old cry, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." To my husband I
clung with like tenacity, and could not admit that my suffering was
through any fault of his.

The summer after my marriage, mother went for a long visit to Butler,
and left us in possession of her house. My husband bought a village
property, including a wagon-maker's shop, employed a workman and sent
him to board with me. He also made some additions to a dwelling on it,
that we might go there to live, and the workmen boarded with me, while
my mother-in-law furnished provisions and came or sent a daughter to see
that I did not waste them. Her reproofs were in the form of suggestions,
and she sought to please me by saying she had "allowed James" to get
certain things for me; but he did not visit me any oftener than when
mother was at home, and when she returned in the autumn, the potatoes
were frozen in the ground, the apples on the trees, and the cow stood
starving at the stable door.

Then I learned that I had been expected to secure the fall crops on
mother's lot, and this was not unreasonable, for I had married a
Pennsylvania farmer, and their wives and 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