The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nation [22]
know then how to contend with
disappointments on every hand. At one time I was quite sick with chills
and fever. I had nothing in the house but meal, some fat bacon and sweet
potatoes. There was a poor old man that we took in for charity who
was with us, named Mr. Holt. I called him to my bedside and asked
him to go to the patch and dig a bushel of sweet potatoes and take them
to town and exchange them for a little tea, sugar, lemons and bread.
He failed in this and was returning when, he met a dear, sweet woman,
Mrs. Underwood, that I called my "Texas Mother." She called to Mr.
Holt, and asked him how I was. He told her I was sick and out of
anything to eat. She took the potatoes and sent the articles I wanted.
I believe I should have died had he returned without them, for I was
almost famished for food and sick besides.
I was in Columbia one day and stopped at the Old Columbia Hotel,
owned by the Messrs. Park, two bachelors. Mrs. Ballenger a widow was
renting it from Messrs. Park. I said to them: "If you ever need a tenant,
send for me." In a few months Mrs. Ballenger's daughter died and she
left. Mr. Park sent for me to come. We had a car load of good plain
furniture and bedding, some handsome tableware, but no money to buy
provisions.
Dear old mother Gloyd was a great help to me. She had once
kept hotel herself. I did not ask credit, and this is how I got the money
to begin keeping hotel: There was an Irish ditcher named Dunn whose
wife did my work. She was a good cook. I borrowed of Mr. Dunn three
dollars and fifty cents, and with this money began the hotel business. The
house was a rattle trap, plastering off, and a regular bed-bug nest.
I fumigated, pasted the walls over with cloth and newspapers, where the
plastering was off, and made curtains out of old sheets. My purchases
were about like this for the first day: Fifty cents worth of meat, coffee
ten cents, rice ten cents and sugar twenty-five cents, potatoes five, etc.
The transients at one meal would give me something to spend for the next.
I assisted about the cooking and helped in the dining-room. Mother Gloyd
and Lola attended to the chamber work, and little Charlien was the one
who did the buying for the house. I would often wash out my tablecloths
at night myself and iron them in the morning before breakfast. I would
take boarders' washing, hire a woman to wash, then do the ironing myself.
Columbia was a small village of not more than five hundred people. It was
the terminal of a railroad called the Columbia Tap. Mr. Painter, the
conductor, began boarding with us right off and in three or four days he
brought a family there to board by the name of Oastram, father, mother
and two boys, having come south to buy a plantation. Mrs. Oastrom handed
me a ten dollar bill. I called Lola and Charlien upstairs and showed
them the ten dollar bill. We were overjoyed; we danced, laughed, and
cried. Charlien said: "Now we can buy a whole ham." For several
months my little children and I ate nothing but broken food. I can never
put on paper the struggles of this life. I would not know one day how we
would get along the next.
The bitterest sorrows of my life have come from not having the
love of a husband. I must here say that I have had, at times, in the
society of those I love, a foretaste of what this could be. For years
I never saw a loving husband that I did not envy the wife; it was a
cry of my heart for love. I used to ask God why He denied me this.
I can see now why it was. I know it was God's will for me to marry
Mr. Nation. Had I married a man I could have loved, God could never
have used me. Phrenologists who have examined my head have said:
"How can you, who are such a lover of home be without one?" The very
thing that I was denied caused me to have a desire to secure it to others.
Payne who wrote "Home Sweet Home" never had one. There is in my
life a cause of sadness and bitter sorrow that God only knows. I shall not
write it here. Oh! how the heart will break almost for a loving word!
I believe
disappointments on every hand. At one time I was quite sick with chills
and fever. I had nothing in the house but meal, some fat bacon and sweet
potatoes. There was a poor old man that we took in for charity who
was with us, named Mr. Holt. I called him to my bedside and asked
him to go to the patch and dig a bushel of sweet potatoes and take them
to town and exchange them for a little tea, sugar, lemons and bread.
He failed in this and was returning when, he met a dear, sweet woman,
Mrs. Underwood, that I called my "Texas Mother." She called to Mr.
Holt, and asked him how I was. He told her I was sick and out of
anything to eat. She took the potatoes and sent the articles I wanted.
I believe I should have died had he returned without them, for I was
almost famished for food and sick besides.
I was in Columbia one day and stopped at the Old Columbia Hotel,
owned by the Messrs. Park, two bachelors. Mrs. Ballenger a widow was
renting it from Messrs. Park. I said to them: "If you ever need a tenant,
send for me." In a few months Mrs. Ballenger's daughter died and she
left. Mr. Park sent for me to come. We had a car load of good plain
furniture and bedding, some handsome tableware, but no money to buy
provisions.
Dear old mother Gloyd was a great help to me. She had once
kept hotel herself. I did not ask credit, and this is how I got the money
to begin keeping hotel: There was an Irish ditcher named Dunn whose
wife did my work. She was a good cook. I borrowed of Mr. Dunn three
dollars and fifty cents, and with this money began the hotel business. The
house was a rattle trap, plastering off, and a regular bed-bug nest.
I fumigated, pasted the walls over with cloth and newspapers, where the
plastering was off, and made curtains out of old sheets. My purchases
were about like this for the first day: Fifty cents worth of meat, coffee
ten cents, rice ten cents and sugar twenty-five cents, potatoes five, etc.
The transients at one meal would give me something to spend for the next.
I assisted about the cooking and helped in the dining-room. Mother Gloyd
and Lola attended to the chamber work, and little Charlien was the one
who did the buying for the house. I would often wash out my tablecloths
at night myself and iron them in the morning before breakfast. I would
take boarders' washing, hire a woman to wash, then do the ironing myself.
Columbia was a small village of not more than five hundred people. It was
the terminal of a railroad called the Columbia Tap. Mr. Painter, the
conductor, began boarding with us right off and in three or four days he
brought a family there to board by the name of Oastram, father, mother
and two boys, having come south to buy a plantation. Mrs. Oastrom handed
me a ten dollar bill. I called Lola and Charlien upstairs and showed
them the ten dollar bill. We were overjoyed; we danced, laughed, and
cried. Charlien said: "Now we can buy a whole ham." For several
months my little children and I ate nothing but broken food. I can never
put on paper the struggles of this life. I would not know one day how we
would get along the next.
The bitterest sorrows of my life have come from not having the
love of a husband. I must here say that I have had, at times, in the
society of those I love, a foretaste of what this could be. For years
I never saw a loving husband that I did not envy the wife; it was a
cry of my heart for love. I used to ask God why He denied me this.
I can see now why it was. I know it was God's will for me to marry
Mr. Nation. Had I married a man I could have loved, God could never
have used me. Phrenologists who have examined my head have said:
"How can you, who are such a lover of home be without one?" The very
thing that I was denied caused me to have a desire to secure it to others.
Payne who wrote "Home Sweet Home" never had one. There is in my
life a cause of sadness and bitter sorrow that God only knows. I shall not
write it here. Oh! how the heart will break almost for a loving word!
I believe