New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-03-29
4 WONAN WHO HAD NO CHANCE.

A WOMAN WHO HAD NJ CHhHcH'
We are tempted to give sketch of woman
still living, because hers is so common charac-
ter and history that any village or inland town
may claim half dozen originals OF both J;
there will certainly be no danger OF recogni-
ton. On one of the earlier days OF this month
the woman Of whom we speak went 10
Philadelphia to lay in stock; she keeps small
dry goods and trimming store in thriving
town. She went out to look at the Centennlai
buildings, at the department for womens work.
for which women alone have paid; she saw,
too. some of tho Executive Committee OF her
own sex at work Noticing her wistful face,
one of the busy ladies said: Can
you not do something for us inyour own town
"Women of intelligence and patriotism ought
"to como to the front now to help their
"country.p al can do nothing" replied the
visitor. 81 am not woman who can come to
"the front. My daughter is at work for you,
"however,n she added with slight glow OF
pride. She went home with bitter sense OF
humiliation. She was born, she thought
generation too soon. If she were young girl
now, what careers were open for woman OF
ablity-and she knew she had ability. There
were chances now on every side to develop
oneself and to help Others But it was too late for
her. She must die as she had lived-nOthing and
nobody. There is plenty of such morbid
Numbering among women nowadays MIS-
White, let us say (there are hundreds OF her
class among the Whites and Blacks and all the
other colors), went home to her village and'
her shop 1t was a shop where she sold the
plainest of wares-she had neither money to
A, hrio- o-h or "
soul longed in the city, nor customers to
whom she could sell them the village was
an isolated one, where the crops and gossip
supplied subjects for all mental exercise. Some
day perhaps facts and thoughts from this
wider outer world would penetrate its dull
atmosphere, but not while she lived; she had
too nearly run her course for that.
The history of the woman was this. she
had great beauty when girl; not mere pref
tiness, but rare absolute beauty. She had
also nimble receptive intellect, of quite as
GOOD caliber as those of the women who have
made themselves public name and position;
in short she began life with good capital. But
opportunity was wanting to use 1t. Her
beauty made her the belle of the county She
married q well-tO-dO farmer, who lost his
property by Encouragement, died and left her
with house full of healthy, headstrong boys
and girls to feed, clOthe, educate, and bring
up nationally and piously. She did not
sit down to sew; the needle was too
small a tool for such weighty work. She
opened dairy. laundry, vegetable garden
As one staff broke down she tried another
finally settling down in the shop which she
now owns, which is the largest in the county.
In the mean time she has had tough
struggle to pull the children along and up,
for she was resolved that they should rise
above her own standing ground. There was one
son. whom she sent to college, and who be-
gan to drink us soon us size had him at work
attending the lectures at Philadelphia Twice
the DOOR woman crossed the mountains and
ransacked the great city to find him In some
den of misery; for more than year she
kept him under her own eye every moment,
while the poor wretch fought the devil of drink,
nursing him tenderly as though he were still
baby, with agony of soul to which the pains
of his birth were nothing. The boy conquered
at last. He is now the leading physician IN
his native place, a man of great force and sta
bity of character, and he is fond of telling
his boys how that all he is he owes to his
mother. There was the Oldest girl, too, who
had spinal complaint, and for years lay hope
less cripple in the little chamber over the shop.
Everybody in the village remembers how dainty
and cheerful place the little chamber was,
and how, no matter what drudgery or anxiety
waited for the poor mother outside, she never
entered its door but with smiling face.
Everybody knows the hard work and saving
and stinting she practiced for years to edit
cate the other children-tO give son start IN
Kentucky, and buy daughter house and outfit
when she was left u widow. They are all
married or happily settled now. The poor Grip
ple afterher years of pain is at rest in the green
hillside. The mother lives alone, with such
grandchildren az can be spared to her now
and then. Her youngest girl, went as
q teacher to Ohio, then entered college
where both sexes were admitted now she is
in this city earning her living by drawing,
writing for one or two weekly papers, &c.
It is she who is working for the woman's
department of the Centennial. She is bril-
liant talker she glaDces over the current sub
jects of the day in a light touchand-gO way,
which bewilders her mother with the prOfun-
dity and extent of her knowledge "If she
chad had Betty's chance!" she thinks she too
might have played great and worthy part in
life.
There are many women of her age and class
who have this morbid discomfort, just now.
But the Judge who shall weigh her work and
her daughters, and that of each and all of us,
has other scales than ours.
Dr. Gerhard Rollfs, the distinguished African ex-