Miss Anthony started with Mrs. Gage January 4, 1856. As many of their meetings were off the railroad, there was a hard siege ahead of them. The diary says: "January 8: Terribly cold and windy; only a dozen people in the hall; had a social chat with them and returned to our hotel. Lost more here at Dansville than we gained at Mount Morris. So goes the world.... January 9: Mercury 12° below zero but we took a sleigh for Nunda. Trains all blocked by snow and no mail for several days, yet we had a full house and good meeting." Extracts from one or two letters written home will give some idea of this perilous journey:
HALL'S CORNERS, January 11, 8-1/2 o'clock.
Just emerged from a long line of snowdrifts and stepped at this little country tavern, supped and am now roasting over a hot stove. Oh, oh, what an experience! No trains running and we have had a thirty-six mile ride in a sleigh. Once we seemed lost in a drift full fifteen feet deep. The driver went on ahead to a house, and there we sat shivering. When he returned we found he had gone over a fence into a field, so we had to dismount and plough through the snow after the sleigh; then we reseated ourselves, but oh, the poor horses!...
WENDTE'S STATION, January 14, 12-1/2 o'clock P. M.
Well, well, good folks at home, these surely are the times that try women's souls. After writing you last, the snows fell and the winds blew and the cars failed to go and come at their appointed hours. We could have reached Warsaw if the omnibus had had the energy to come for us. The train, however, got no farther than Warsaw, where it stuck in a snowdrift eleven feet deep and a hundred long, but we might have kept that engagement at least. Friday morning we went to the station; no trains and no hope of any, but a man said he could get us to Attica in time for an evening meeting, so we agreed to pay him $5. He had a noble pair of greys and we floundered through the deepest snowbanks I ever saw, but at 7 o'clock were still fourteen miles from Attica.
We stopped at a little tavern where the landlady was not yet twenty and had a baby fifteen months old. Her supper dishes were not washed and her baby was crying, but she was equal to the occasion. She rocked the little thing to sleep, washed the dishes and got our supper; beautiful white bread, butter, cheese, pickles, apple and mince pie, and excellent peach preserves. She gave us her warm bedroom to sleep in, and on a row of pegs hung the loveliest embroidered petticoats and baby clothes, all the work of that young woman's fingers, while on a rack was her ironing perfectly done, wrought undersleeves, baby dresses, embroidered underwear, etc. She prepared a 6 o'clock breakfast for us, fried pork, mashed potatoes, mince pie, and for me, at my especial request, a plate of delicious baked sweet apples and a pitcher of rich milk. Now for the moral of this story: When we came to pay our bill, the dolt of a husband took the money and put it in his pocket. He had not lifted a hand to lighten that woman's burdens, but had sat and talked with the men in the bar room, not even caring for the baby, yet the law gives him the right to every dollar she earns, and when she needs two cents to buy a darning needle she has to ask him and explain what she wants it for.