"Pass it On."

Otago Witness, Issue 2088, 1 March 1894, Page 49

"Pass it On."

A PRETTY STORY OF WENDELL PHILLIPS AND A

NIECE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.

After the close of the civil war the North was filled with Southern refugees, many of them delicate women, reduced from affluence to poverty, and compelled to earn a living for themselves and their families. One of these was a niece of Jefferson Davis, a woman of uuusual cultivation, who found a scanty and precarious subsistence by giving an occasional lecture before a country audience on Southern I life. Sheltered and shielded as she had always I been, the struggle with the world was hard. Women were just beginning to appear on the public platform, and she was unknown and I friendless ; but bravely she worked on, asking aid from no one. It was a cold, blustering January day in 1868 when, cold and shivering from an early morning drive in the rain, and with her thin wrapß dripping, Mrs H. entered' the Boston train at a way Btation. All the Beats were occupied, some with passengers, some with bags, bundles, | and overcoats. ! Trembling from weakness and weariness, Mrs H. supported herself against the back of a seat as the train moved off. At that moment a gentleman chanced to lower his newspaper and caught sight of the black-robed woman. With a quick explanation he sprang to his feet, removed a valise from the seat beside him, and invited her to occupy it. As she sank down exhausted he carefully wrapped his travelling rug about her. She thanked him for his kindness, and he, turning to her, said : "Pardon me, madam; but are you not a Southerner ?" [ " Yes," she answered, •• I am. I suppose you know it from my speech ; many people have done so." "The accent is unmistakable," he replied; "but, pardon me again, are you not a long way from home ? " "A long way, indeed!" she replied; and, encouraged by his sympathetic voice and manner, she added, " I lost my all during the war, and as there is no money in the South I came North to find means to support my fatherless children." j ' " And have you done co ? " he asked, in a kindly manner. " After a small fashion," she answered. " I have occasional engagements to apeak to country audiences on^life in the South during < and before the war. ! " Did you speak^ last night P" he asked. "Yes, in X.," was the answer. " And — I do not want to be impertinent, but I am somewhat in the same business myself, and I should like to know — that is if you would not mind telling me— how much they paid you for your lecture ? " " Five dollars and the fare to and from Boston," was the response. "Five dollars!" he exclaimed. "Why, I always get lOOdol or 200dol ; and your lecture must be worth a great deal more than mine, for you can give facts, while I can only furnish opinions." ••Little as it is," answered Mrs H., "I am very glad to get it ; I would talk at that rate every night during the winter." For a while the man sat in silence ; then putting his hand in his pocket, he drew out a roll of banknotes, and in a hesitating manner, said ; "I don't want to be intrusive, but one of the articles of my creed is that a woman is entitled to the same pay as a man if she does the same amount of work. My price for a night's talk is 200dol, and that sum they paid me last night at Z. ; now, if you will let me divide it with you I shall have had my share, and the thing will be even, don't-you see ? " After much urging and many thoughts of her needy little ones, Mrs H. was pc suaded to put the roll in h?r pursp, but ib was nob until the end oF her journey that she examined the roll and found it contained just 100 -101. Some years afterward she discovered that her unknown benefactor was Wendell Phillips, and being then past the need of help, she essayed to pay back the debt. "Don't speak of it," siid Mr Phillips. "I had entirely forgotten the incident." " That is very probable," she replied, " but I had never forgotten it. That money, and still more your words of sympathy and encouragement, were the beginning of better days ; and I am now abundantly affle to pay back tho money." "Pass it on, then, my dear madam ; pass it on to some one who needs it."