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I have already said that I sympathized with the Democratic party. In 1844 Clay and Frelinghuyson were the Whig candidates. One afternoon during the summer I was sitting in the parlor singing snatches of Democratic songs for my own amusement; and, before I knew it, two gentlemen came into the room, one of whom advanced toward me with the request that I favor them with another song. When I had finished singing, he said,

"Then Mr. Clay is not your candidate."

"No," I replied, "but I have a profound respect and reverence for him, and also for Mr. Frelinghuyson, -- yet they are not my candidates." At that moment Mr. Chamberlain came up and presented me to the two strangers; and to my utter consternation I found that one of them was Mr. Frelinghuyson himself.

"Mr. Frelinghuyson," I said, "you have heard me express my views already; and for me to say that I did not mean it would be telling a falsehood. But I would not have said what I did, had I known you were present, -- so please take it for what it is worth." He laughed heartily and replied, "I give you credit for your candor."

My interest in public affairs has never abated. There are not many people living jn this year of grace who had the privilege of meeting such statesmen as Henry Clay, General Scott, and President Polk; but the names of these heroes are recorded with indelible letters among the annals of our national history and their imperishable deeds are chronicled in characters that no person living should wish to efface. They were men of sterling worth and firm integrity, of whom the rising generation may well learn wisdom and the true principles of national honor and democracy that all of them labored so faith-fully to inculcate. And that the men of this present age and of generations to come will continue to remember the dignity and honor that the past has bequeathed to our own and future times, no loyal American need have one iota of doubt.

CHAPTER XI
CONTRASTED EVENTS

NOT many months after the visit of General Scott vague rumors of the spread of Asiatic cholera came to our ears. By autumn the dread disease had swept all over Europe slaying its thousands and putting the inhabitants of the infected cities into a panic. The winter of 1848 was favorable to the spread of cholera; a mild, damp, muggy atmosphere prevailed, and the physicians in our city began to predict that we were certain to be visited by the terrible scourge within the year. In 1832 our land had been stricken with cholera and I remembered well the sad reports that reached our little hamlet at Ridgefield from week to week.

For many months, while the black cloud now seemed to be hanging over the defenseless towns of America, we hoped that we might be spared from its ravages, but I think the cholera reached New York in March or April of 1849. At first it was confined to the lower part of the city, where the authorities tried vigorously to stamp it out, meanwhile endeavoring to keep the matter as quiet as possible for fear of unduly alarming the people.

One morning in June Mr. Chamberlain came running into the office; and he was so excited that we thought something dreadful had occurred. I followed him and he said, "Will you promise not to tell what has happened?" I answered in the affirmative; and then he unfolded a pitiful story of a man who had been taken in our very midst; and how they had hurried him to the nearest hospital -- a common cart being the only vehicle that could be immediately secured -- but the poor sufferer had died on the way. Then we knew that the disease might enter our school at any moment; in which case we feared a terrible mortality among the pupils, for none of them had left for the summer vacation.

On the following Monday we had our first case. One of the youngest girls was taken; she called me to her and asked me to hold her in my lap, as I had been accus-tomed to do.

"Miss Crosby, I am going home," she said, "and I just wanted to bid you good-bye and to tell you I love you. Now lay me down again." Toward evening she died and before sunrise the next morning we carried her to Trinity Cemetery, where a brief prayer was said; and then, just as the dawn was coming across the eastern hills, our little company slowly wended its way back to the Institution to await the next case.

Dr. J. W. G. Clements was one of the most skillful physicians that the city afforded; but medicine was almost powerless to check the ravages of cholera, except it were used merely as a preventative. I assisted as a volunteer nurse, and helped the doctor make some of the remedies. One of them was composed of three parts mercury and one part opium, rolled into pills. I remember that we made six hundred in one day. At the appearance of anything like a symptom of cholera we administered very generous doses of these pills, which proved to be efficient remedies in half of our twenty cases, ten terminating fatally.

I shudder when I recall those days; for frequently the stillness of the night, while I was watching at some bedside, would be broken by the hoarse cry, "Bring out your dead," from some of the city officials as they knocked at the door of a bereaved household. Once, as I was entering the sick room, I struck my foot against an object, which I instantly recognized as a coffin awaiting the morning burial.