CHAPTER X.
KENTUCKY CONTEMPT FOR LABOR .-- AGE, 23, 24.
To a white woman in Louisville, work was a dire disgrace, and one Sabbath four of us sat suffering from thirst, with the pump across the street, when I learned that for me to go for a pitcher of water, would be so great a disgrace to the house as to demand my instant expulsion.
I grew tired doing nothing.

My husband's business did not prosper, and I went to a dressmaker and asked for work.

She was a New England woman, and after some shrewd questions, exclaimed: "My dear child, go home to your mother! What does your husband mean?
Does he not know you would be insulted at every step if you work for a living?
Go home--go home to your mother!" I was homesick, and the kindness of the voice and eyes made me cry.

I told her I could not leave my husband.
"Then let him support you, or send you home until he can! I have seen too many like you go to destruction here.

Go home." I said that I could never go to destruction, but she interrupted me: "You know nothing about it.