Show MR BEECHERS WIDOW HER LOVERLIKE LOVE FOR HER ILLUSTRIOUS IL-LUSTRIOUS HUSBAND Their Early Married Life in the West Happy in a House of Two Itooms Tho Pleasures of Simplicity and the Penalties Penal-ties of Distinction I Special Correspondence NEW YORK March 9 While Henry Ward Beechers life was ebbing eb-bing away in those last few days when his condition as his physicians said was like that of one in a troubled dream and since L his soul has gone out of its clay garments his wife has shown the same high courage which has distinguished her throughout her entire life She loved her husband passing well Indeed she might be said to be in love with him as they say of the young who are under an infatuation which marriage mar-riage so often dispels There is no doubt of I one thingafter more than forty years of wedlock Mrs Beecher was unmistakably in love with her husband This fact alone is the highest and most eloquent tribute to the great preachers character that can ever be given I talked with her just after she had returned Iii from a long trip through California and the south and she spoke with girlish delight or the pleasure she had had in his society while they were away i I 1 MRS BEECHER We were whole days together in the cars I she said with eyes burning with feeling ua most unusual boon I wrote my daughter after we returned and I remember I said to her I have been getting acquainted with your father and have fallen deeply in love with him If ho proposes I think I shall accept ac-cept him She had been telling us how the many public demands made upon him had taken him from her of necessity and of their simple beautiful early married life when poverty was their constant guest and came in and dwelt with them in a cottage of two rooms yet did not drive love out Mrs Beecher has been sometimes < las o l-as cold and ungenial This is certainly a superficial su-perficial reading of her character She isnt demonstrative or diffusive certainly She doesnt affect the amiable and pleasing doesnt affect anything in fact In the matter > f self poise I should soy she is without eouai If any one on earth possesses the magic staff of the Seer of the North she does Under all circumstances preserve an equal mind She is indifferent to public praise or that intangible intoxicating burdensome thing they cnll fame whkh often possesses its possessor pos-sessor when he is supposed to possess it She wouldnt turn her head to look at a king A celebrity is no more than a fly to her I heard her questioned about a distinguished distin-guished man who had been in Plymouth church the Sunday before I dont know what he was like I did not look at him I care nothing about seeing great people She would not raise an eyelid I imagine if a string of celebrities as long as the Brooklyn bridge passed her door nor lift her head if are a-re illlent of enemies screamed at her Comparatively little has been written about Mrs Beecher considering the fact that she was the wife and is now the widow of him who was our greatest American clergyman She is simply and invariably her natural self a woman of fine mind high character self contained but not cold or severe not enthusiastic en-thusiastic buk constant and strong exactly the kind of woman to bo a prop to the great but impulsive soul who was so long her closest companion I recall her to mind as she appeared in her own homo one afternoon of the early winter of 84 I wrote something about her then which a few may still remember The largo library was lighted by a glowing grate fire and made beautiful and cheerful by pictures bricabrac books and flowers Mrs Beecher with her white hair flower trimmed cap fine laces slender golden chains and soft brown silk gown was the most pleasing pleas-ing picture of all and one I shall long remember re-member She is a handsome woman still despite tho traces of years upon her face Her profile is purely Grecian and her eyes have tho brightness of a spirit that knows no old ago She is an admirable talker not egotistical not self assertive but interesting and most graceful I She spoke of their early life in Indianapolis ihirtysoven years before nnd grew almost enthusiastic in her reminiscent description It was evident that the recollection of it was sweet and pleasant to her She and her husband hus-band had gone there from Lawrence burg in tho hope that it would bo a place where they would have comparative immunity im-munity from chills This delusion was soon dissipated Malaria met them on their arrival shook them while they remained and followed them when they left They lived there two years and two of their children chil-dren I think were born there Mrs Beecher is the mother of ten children only four of whom are living Their house contained only a parlor and dining room which also answered an-swered for a kitchen A veranda ran along the front and this they boarded up and divided di-vided into two little bedrooms leaving a passageway pas-sageway in the middle Each room contained a bcdUonly this and nothing more Not afoot a-foot of space remained for washstand or chair To make up these beds Mrs Beecher said she was obliged to reach through the windows which opened into the house proper The rooms themselves wero not big enough for her to go into and raise her arms to spread the sheets Mr Beechers salary was 000 a year which was reduced to 400 when the congregation bought him his little cottage At Lawrence burg he had received only 300 This then was in the nature of great good fortune His desk stood in the parlor and in a spot which commanded a view of the combined dining room and kitchen where she worked As fast as he finished a few pages ho called her and she quit her work and sat down beside him on a low chair her arias covered with flour perhaps per-haps while he read what he had written Then they talked it over and new thoughts were the result She went back to her cooking and he returned re-turned to his sermon There was a little smoke house in the yard where she did the family washing When she was there Mr Beecher called her by making a trumpet of his hands and blowing a blast through it that waked tho echoes Then she wiped the suds from her hands and arms and ran in to talk theology little dreaming that he had grasped the germ of what was to grow into the most beautiful theology ever uttered the God with us and the God within us of the near future How could she know that the man nt whos fit r plaiHy wit ROll gave as well l r r tin us usr r < < spiritual forccLs of the age I kept boarders she said took in sewing did my own housework including the washing wash-ing and ironing and usually with a baby in my arms and I would willingly go back and do it all over again if i I could I was happy I had my husband always with me He was never away except when he went to see his people We worked together continually He painted the house by the light of a lantern lan-tern I holding the lantern We were associated asso-ciated in the same way with everything that was done Now Mr Bee < her belongs so much to the public that of necessity L see very little lit-tle of him But then I have no ambition none in the world When people say to me Arent you proud of your husband I say No What happiness would there be in pride I would rather see more of him I am glad of the work he is doing but I care noth I for the worldly honor of it Is it strange that finding her happiness entirely en-tirely in her family and caring nothing whatever for the worlds voice either in praise or blame life in the little house in Indianapolis In-dianapolis with all its self denial and hard work looks beautiful to herl Her world was small but it was full The big busy world had not yet begun to claim a share of the new apostle of thought Distinction has its penalties and obscurity its blessings Not everybody knows that Mrs Beecher is the author of a novel entitled From Dawn Till Daylight and published many years ago The title she gave it i was Reminiscences of a Ministers Vife J iio publishers < imaged to the one it was published under without her knowledge The house that issued is-sued it failed soon after it appeared This fact probably prevented it from attaining attain-ing the circulation it deserved A few years ago one of her old western neighbors stumbled across a copy in a public library read it and worked himself at once into a rage be cnusa ho thought he recognized his own port ti t lit in one of the least admirable of the diartitl His indignation got into print floated to the metropolis and set a procession of new paplr reporters ringing the Beecher doorbell with the polite intention of asking the author of From Dawn Till Daylight if she really did intend to portray the wrathful old man The Beechers left Indianapolis forty years ago and went direct to Brooklyn Mrs Beecher left six weeks before the first railroad leading eastward was finished and Mr Beecher traveled on the first passenger tram that rolled out of Indianas capital GERTRUDE GARPISOW |