our cause mixed with abolition and niggers, and we shall be utterly
denounced." Gradually, however, the meeting waxed warm. Baptist,
Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Universalist preachers had
come to hear and discuss the resolutions presented. One argued the
superiority of the male intellect, another the sin of Eve, and the
women, most of whom did not "speak in meeting," were becoming filled
with dismay. Then slowly from her seat in the corner rose Sojourner
Truth, who till now had scarcely lifted her head. Slowly and solemnly
to the front she moved, laid her old bonnet at her feet, and turned
her great, speaking eyes upon the chair. Mrs. Gage, quite equal to the
occasion, stepped forward and announced "Sojourner Truth," and begged
the audience to be silent a few minutes. "The tumult subsided at once,
and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly
six feet high, head erect, and eye piercing the upper air, like one in a
dream." At her first word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep
tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and even
the throng at the doors and windows. To one man who had ridiculed the
general helplessness of woman, her needing to be assisted into carriages
and to be given the best place everywhere, she said, "Nobody eber helped
me into carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gibs me any best place"; and
raising herself to her full height, with a voice pitched like rolling
thunder, she asked, "And a'n't I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm."
And she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous
muscular power. "I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns,
and no man could head me--and a'n't I a woman? I could work as much and
eat as much as a man, when I could get it, and bear de lash as well--and
a'n't I a woman? I have borne five chilern and seen 'em mos' all sold
off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none but
Jesus heard--and a'n't I a woman?... Dey talks 'bout dis ting in de
head--what dis dey call it?" "Intellect," said some one near. "Dat's it,