A YOUNG girl was standing on a stump in the woods, waving her arms and talking very earnestly. There was no one there to listen except a robin a-tilt on a branch where the afternoon sun could turn his rusty brown breast to red, and a chattering, inquisitive bluejay. All the other little wood folk were in hiding. That strange creature was in the woods but not of them. She belonged to the world of people.

The girl knew that she belonged to a different world. She was not trying to play that she was a little American Saint Francis preaching to the birds in the forests of northern Michigan. She was looking past the great trees and all the busy life that lurked there to the far-away haunts of men. Somehow she felt that she would have something to say to them some day. She raised her clasped hands high above her head and lifted her face to the patch of sky that gleamed deep blue between the golden-green branches of the trees. "There is much that I can say," she declared fervently. "I am only a girl, but I feel in my heart that some day people will listen to me."

A gray squirrel scampered noisily across the dry brown leaves and frisked up a tree trunk, where he clung for a moment regarding the girl on the stump with shining, curious eyes.

"Saucy nutcracker!" cried the child, tossing an acorn at the alert little creature. "Do you too think it strange for a girl to want to do things? What would you say if I should tell you that a young girl once led a great army to victory?—a poor girl who had to work hard all day just as I do? She did not know how to read or write, but she knew how to answer all the puzzling questions that the learned and powerful men of the day (who tried with all their might to trip her up) could think to ask. They called her a witch then. 'Of a truth this girl Joan must be possessed of an evil spirit,' they said. 'Who ever heard of a maid speaking as she speaks?' Years afterward they called her a saint. She was the leader of her people even though she was a girl—Now I don't mean, fellow birds and squirrels, that I expect to be another Joan of Arc, but I know that I shall be something!"

Anna Shaw's bright dark eyes glowed with intense feeling. Like the maid of whom she had been reading, she had her vision—a vision of a large, happy life waiting for her—little, untaught backwoods girl though she was. Her book led the way down a charmed path into the world of dreams. For the time she forgot the drudgery of the days—the plowing and planting and hoeing about the stumps of their little clearing, the cutting of wood, the carrying of water. She walked back to the cabin that was home, with her head held high and her lips parted in a smile. But all at once she was brought back to real things with a rude bump.

"What have you been doing, Anna?" demanded her father, who stood waiting for her in the doorway.

"Reading, sir," the girl faltered.

"So you have been idling away precious hours at a time your mother has needed your help?" the stern voice went on accusingly. "What do you suppose the future will bring to one who has not proved 'faithful in little'?"

The girl looked at her father without speaking. She knew that her share in the work of the household was not "little." Her young hands hardened from rough toil twitched nervously; the injustice cut her to the quick. Couldn't her father imagine what holding down that claim in the woods had meant for the little family during the eighteen months that he and the two older boys had remained behind in the East? In his joy at securing the grant of land from the Government, he already pictured the well-conditioned farm that would one day be his and his children's. "The acorn was not an acorn, but a forest of young oaks."

In a flash she saw as if it were yesterday the afternoon when their pathetic little caravan had at last reached the home that awaited them. She saw the frail, tired mother give one glance at the rude log hut in the stump-filled clearing, and then sink in a despairing heap on the dirt floor. It was but the hollow shell of a cabin—walls and roof, with square holes for door and windows gaping forlornly at the home-seekers. She heard the wolves and wildcats as she had on that first night when they had huddled together—helpless creatures from another world—not knowing if their watch-fires would keep the hungry beasts at bay. She saw parties of Indians stalk by in war-paint and feathers. She saw herself, a child of twelve, trudging wearily to the distant creek for water until the time when, with her brother's help, she dug a well. There was, too, the work of laying a floor and putting in doors and windows. Like Robinson Crusoe, she had served a turn at every trade; to-day that of carpenter or builder, to-morrow that of farmer, fisherman, or woodcutter.

As these pictures flashed before the eye of memory she looked at her father quietly, without a word of defense or self-pity. All she said was, "Father, some day I am going to college."

The little smile that curled his lips as he looked his astonishment drove her to another boast. The dreams of the free calm woods and the heroic Maid of Orleans had faded away. Somehow she longed to put forth her claim in a way to impress any one, even a man who felt that a girl ought not to want anything but drudging. "And before I die I shall be worth $10,000," she prophesied boldly.

However, the months that succeeded gave no sign of any change of fortune. A sudden storm turned a day of toil now and then into a red-letter day when one had chance to read the books that father had brought with him into the wilderness. Sometimes one could stretch at ease on the floor and dreamily scan the pages of the "Weekly" that papered the walls. There was always abundant opportunity in the busy hours that followed to reflect on what one had read—to compare, to contrast, and to apply, and so to annex for good and all the ideas that the books had to give.

It was clear, too, that there were many interesting things to be seen and enjoyed even in the most humdrum work-a-day round, if one were able to read real life as well as print. Could anything be more delightful than the way father would drop his hoe and run into the house to work out a problem concerning the yield of a certain number of kernels of corn? The days would go by while he calculated and speculated energetically over this problem and that, leaving such trivial tasks as planting and plowing to others. Then there were the weekend visitors. Often as many as ten or a dozen of the neighboring settlers—big lumbermen and farmers—would come on Saturday, to spend the night and Sunday listening to her father read. When it was delicately hinted that this was a tax on the family store of tallow dips, each man dutifully brought a candle to light the way to learning. It never seemed to occur, either to them or to the impractical father, who liked nothing better than reading and expounding, that the entertainment of so many guests was a severe tax on the strength and patience of the working members of the household.

But life was not all labor. There was now and then a wonderful ball at Big Rapids, then a booming lumber town. When it was impossible to get any sort of a team to make the journey, they went down the river on a raft, taking their party dresses in trunks. As balls, like other good things in pioneer experience, were all too rare, it was the custom to make the most of each occasion by changing one's costume at midnight, and thus starting off with fresh enthusiasm to dance the "money musk" and the "Virginia reel" in the small hours.

"Our costumes in those days had at least the spice of originality," said Miss Shaw with a reminiscent smile. "I well remember a certain gay ball gown of my own, made of bedroom chintz; and the home-tailored trousers of my gallant swain, whose economical mother had employed flour sacks, on which the local firm-name and the guarantee, '96 pounds,' appeared indelibly imprinted. A blue flannel shirt and a festive yellow sash completed his interesting outfit."

When Anna Shaw was fifteen she began to teach in the little log schoolhouse of the settlement for two dollars a week and "board round." The day's work often meant a walk of from three to six miles, a trip to the woods for fuel, the making of the wood fire and the partial drying of rain-soaked clothes, before instruction began. Then imagine the child of fifteen teaching fifteen children of assorted ages and dispositions out of fifteen different "reading books," most of which she had herself supplied. "I remember that one little girl read from a hymn-book, while another had an almanac," she said.

As there was no money for such luxuries as education until the dog-tax had been collected, the young teacher received one bright spring day the dazzling sum of twenty-six dollars for the entire term of thirteen weeks. In the spending of this wealth, spring and youth carried the day. Joan of Arc and the preaching in the woods were for the time forgotten; she longed above everything else to have some of the pretty things that all girls love. Making a pilgrimage to a real shop, she bought her first real party dress—a splendid creation of rich magenta color, elaborately decorated with black braid.

Perhaps she regretted all too soon the rashness of this expenditure, for the next year brought hard times. War had been declared, and Lincoln's call for troops had taken all the able-bodied men of the community. "When news came that Fort Sumter had been fired on," said Miss Shaw, "our men were threshing. I remember seeing a man ride up on horseback, shouting out Lincoln's demand for troops and explaining that a regiment was being formed at Big Rapids. Before he had finished speaking the men on the machine had leaped to the ground and rushed off to enlist, my brother Jack, who had recently joined us, among them."

Anna Shaw was now the chief support of the little home in the wilderness, and the pitiful sum earned by teaching had to be eked out by boarding the workers from the lumber-camps and taking in sewing, in order to pay the taxes and meet the bare necessities of life. With calico selling for fifty cents a yard, coffee for a dollar a pound, and everything else in proportion, one cannot but marvel how the women and children managed to exist. They struggled along, with hearts heavy with anxiety for loved ones on the battle-fields, to do as best they could the work of the men—gathering in the crops, grinding the corn, and caring for the cattle—in addition to the homekeeping tasks of the daily round. It takes, perhaps, more courage and endurance to be a faithful member of the home army than it does to march into battle with bands playing and colors flying.

When, at the end of the war, the return of the father and brothers freed her from the responsibility for the upkeep of the home, Anna Shaw determined upon a bold step. Realizing that years must pass before she could save enough from her earnings as country school-teacher to go to college, she went to live with a married sister in Big Rapids and entered as a pupil in the high school there. The preceptress, Miss Lucy Foot, who was a college graduate and a woman of unusual strength of character, took a lively interest in the new student and encouraged her ambition to preach by putting her in the classes in public speaking and debating.

"I vividly remember my first recitation in public," said Miss Shaw. "I was so overcome by the impressiveness of the audience and the occasion, and so appalled at my own boldness in standing there, that I sank in a faint on the platform. Sympathetic classmates carried me out and revived me, after which they naturally assumed that the entertainment I furnished was over for the evening. I, however, felt that if I let that failure stand against me I could never afterward speak in public; and within ten minutes, notwithstanding the protests of my friends, I was back in the hall and beginning my recitation a second time. The audience gave me its eager attention. Possibly it hoped to see me topple off the platform again, but nothing of the sort occurred. I went through the recitation with self-possession and received some friendly applause at the end."

After this maiden speech, the young girl appeared frequently in public, now in school debates, now in amateur theatricals. It was as if the Fates had her case particularly in hand at this time, for everything seemed to further the secret longing that had possessed her ever since the days when she had preached to the trees in the forest.

There was a growing sentiment in favor of licensing women to preach in the Methodist Church, and Dr. Peck, the presiding elder of the Big Rapids district, who was chief among the advocates of the movement, was anxious to present the first woman candidate for the ministry. Meeting the alert, ardent young student at the home of her teacher, Dr. Peck took pains to draw her into conversation. Soon she was talking freely, with eager animation, and her questioner was listening with interest, nodding approval now and then. Then an amazing thing happened. Dr. Peck looked at her smilingly and asked in an off-hand manner:

"Would you like to preach the quarterly sermon at Ashton?"

The young woman gasped; she stared at the good man in astonishment. Then she realized that he was speaking in entire seriousness.

"Why," she stammered, "I can't preach a sermon!"

"Have you ever tried?" he asked.

"Never!" she began, and then as the picture of her childish self standing on the stump in the sunlit woods flashed upon her, "Never to human beings!" she amended.

Dr. Peck was smiling again. "Well," he said, "the door is open. Enter or not, as you wish."

After much serious counsel with Miss Foot and with her own soul, Anna Shaw determined to go in at the open door. For six weeks the preparation of the first sermon engaged most of her waking thoughts, and even in her dreams the text she had chosen sounded in her ears. It was, moreover, a time of no little anguish of spirit because of the consternation with which her family regarded her unusual "call." One might as well be guilty of crime, it appeared, as to be so forward and unwomanly. Finding it impossible to bring her to reason in any other way, they tried a bribe. After a solemn gathering of the clans, it was agreed that if she would give up this insane ambition to preach, they would send her to college—to Ann Arbor—and defray all her expenses. The thought of Ann Arbor was a sore temptation; but she realized that she could no more be faithless to the vision that had been with her from childhood than she could cease being herself.

The momentous first sermon was the forerunner of many others in different places, and when at the conference the members were asked to vote whether she should be licensed as a local preacher, the majority of the ministers raised both hands!

She was, however, still regarded as the black sheep of the family, and it was with a heavy spirit that she plodded on day by day with her studies. Surely nobody was ever more in need of a friendly word than was Anna Shaw at the time that Mary A. Livermore came to lecture in Big Rapids. At the close of the meeting she was among those gathered in a circle about the distinguished speaker, when some one pointed her out, remarking that "there was a young person who wanted to preach in spite of the opposition and entreaties of all her friends."

Mrs. Livermore looked into Anna Shaw's glowing eyes with sudden interest; then she put her arm about her and said quietly, "My dear, if you want to preach, go on and preach. No matter what people say, don't let them stop you!"

Before Miss Shaw could choke back her emotion sufficiently to reply, one of her good friends exclaimed: "Oh, Mrs. Livermore, don't say that to her! We're all trying to stop her. Her people are wretched over the whole thing. And don't you see how ill she is? She has one foot in the grave and the other almost there!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Livermore, looking thoughtfully at the white face that was turned appealingly toward her, "I see she has. But it is better that she should die doing the thing she wants to do than that she should die because she can't do it."

"So they think I'm going to die!" cried Miss Shaw. "Well, I'm not! I'm going to live and preach!"

With renewed zeal and courage she turned again to her books, and, in the autumn of 1873, entered Albion College. "With only eighteen dollars as my entire capital," she said, "and not the least idea how I might add to it, I was approaching the campus when I picked up a copper cent bearing the date of my birth, 1848. It seemed to me a good omen, and I was sure of it when within the week I found two more pennies exactly like it. Though I have more than once been tempted to spend those pennies, I have them still—to my great comfort!"

At college she was distinguished for her independence of thought and for her alert, vigorous mind. When, on being invited to join the literary society that boasted both men and women members instead of the exclusively feminine group, she was assured that "women need to be associated with men because they don't know how to manage meetings," she replied with spirit:

"If they don't, it's high time they learned. I shall join the women, and we'll master the art."

Her gift as a public speaker not only earned her a place of prominence in her class through her able debates and orations, but it also helped pay her way through college, since she received now and then five dollars for a temperance talk in one of the near-by country schoolhouses. But such sums came at uncertain intervals, and her board bills came due with discouraging regularity. A gift of ninety-two dollars, sent at Christmas by her friends in Big Rapids, alone made it possible for her to get through the term.

Though the second year at Albion was comparatively smooth sailing because her reputation had brought enough "calls" to preach and lecture to defray her modest expenses, she decided to go to Boston University for her theological course. She was able to make her way in the West; why was it not possible to do the same in the place where she could get the needed equipment for her life work?

But she soon found what it means to be alone and penniless in a large city. Opportunities were few and hungry students were many. For the first time in her life she was tempted to give up and own herself beaten, when a sudden rift came in the clouds of discouragement. She was invited to assist in holding a "revival week" in one of the Boston churches.

It was soon evident that one could live on milk and crackers if only hope were added. The week's campaign was a great success. If she herself had not been able to feel the fervor and enthusiasm that the meetings had aroused, she could have no doubt when the minister assured her that her help had proved invaluable—that he greatly wished he were able to give her the fifty dollars, which at the very lowest estimate she deserved—but alas! he had nothing to offer but his heartfelt thanks!

When Miss Shaw passed out of the church her heart was indeed heavy. She had failed! "I was friendless, penniless, and starving," she said, "but it was not of these conditions that I thought then. The one overwhelming fact was that I had been weighed and found wanting. I was not worthy."

All at once she felt a touch on her arm. An old woman who had evidently been waiting for her to come out put a five-dollar bill in her hand. "I am a poor woman, Miss Shaw," she said, "but I have all I need, and I want to make you a little present, for I know how hard life must be for you young students. I'm the happiest woman in the world to-night, and I owe my happiness to you. You have converted my grandson, who is all I have left, and he is going to lead a different life."

"This is the biggest gift I have ever had," cried Miss Shaw. "This little bill is big enough to carry my future on its back!"

This was indeed the turning point. Here was enough for food and shoes, but it was much more than that. It was a sign that she had her place in the great world. There was need of what she could do, and there could be no more doubt that her needs would be met. Even though she could not see the path ahead she would never lose heart again.

The succeeding months brought not only the means to live but also the spirit to make the most of each day's living. "I graduated in a new black silk gown," she said, "with five dollars in my pocket, which I kept there during the graduation exercises. I felt special satisfaction in the possession of that money, for, notwithstanding the handicap of being a woman, I was said to be the only member of my class who had worked during the entire course, graduated free from debt, and had a new outfit as well as a few dollars in cash."

Miss Shaw's influence as a preacher may be illustrated by a single anecdote. In the months following her graduation she went on a trip to Europe, a friend having left her a bequest for that express purpose. While in Genoa she was asked to preach to the sailors in a gospel-ship in the harbor; but when she appeared it was evident that the missionary in charge had not understood that the minister he had invited was a woman. He was unhappy and apologetic in his introduction, and the weather-beaten tars, in their turn, looked both resentful and mocking. It was certainly a trying moment when Miss Shaw began to speak. She had never in her life felt more forlorn or more homesick, when all at once the thought flashed through her that back of those unfriendly faces that confronted her there were lonely souls just as hungry for home as she was. Impulsively stepping down from the pulpit so that she stood on a level with her hearers, she said:

"My friends, I hope you will forget everything that Dr. Blank has just said. It is true that I am a minister and that I came here to preach. But now I do not intend to preach—only to have a friendly talk, on a text that is not in the Bible. I am very far from home, and I feel as homesick as some of you men look. So my text is, 'Blessed are the homesick, for they shall go home.'"

Then out of the knowledge of sea-faring people which she had gained during summer vacations when she had "filled in" for the absent pastor of a little church on Cape Cod, she talked in a way that went straight to the hearts of the rough men gathered there. When she saw that the unpleasant grin had vanished from the face of the hardest old pirate of them all, she said: "When I came here I intended to preach a sermon on 'The Heavenly Vision.' Now I want to give you a glimpse of that in addition to the vision we have had of home."

After her return to America, Miss Shaw was called as pastor to a church at East Dennis, Cape Cod, and a few months later she was asked to hold services at another church about three miles distant. These two charges she held for seven happy years, rich in the opportunity for real service.

Feeling the need of knowing how to minister to the bodily needs of those she labored among, Miss Shaw took a course at the Boston Medical School, going to the city for a part of each week and graduating with the degree of M.D. in 1885. When some one who knew about her untiring work as leader and helper of the people to whom she preached, asked her how it had been possible for her to endure so great a strain, she replied cheerfully, "Congenial work, no matter how much there is of it, has never yet killed any one."

During the time of her medical studies when Miss Shaw was serving as volunteer doctor and nurse to the poor in the Boston slums, she became interested in the cause of woman suffrage—"The Cause" it was to her always in the years that succeeded. A new day had come with new needs. She saw that everywhere there were changed conditions and grave problems brought about by the entrance of women into the world of wage-earners; and she became convinced that only through an understanding and sharing of the responsibilities of citizenship by both men and women could the best interests of each community be served. She, therefore, gave up her church work on Cape Cod to become a lecturer in a larger field. For a while she devoted part of her time to the temperance crusade until that great leader of the woman's movement, Susan B. Anthony—"Aunt Susan," as she was affectionately called—persuaded her to give all her strength to the Cause.

Without an iron constitution and steady nerves, as well as an unfailing sense of humor, she could never have met the hardships and strange chances that were her portion in the years that succeeded. In order to meet the appointments of her lecture tours she was constantly traveling, often under the most untoward circumstances—now finding herself snow-bound in a small prairie town; now compelled to cross a swollen river on an uncertain trestle; now stricken with an attack of ptomaine poisoning while "on the road," with no one within call except a switchman in his signal-tower.

Perhaps more appalling than any or all of these tests was the occasion when she arrived in a town to find that the lecture committee had advertised her as "the lady who whistled before Queen Victoria," and announced that she would speak on "The Missing link." When she ventured to protest, the manager remarked amiably that they had "mixed her up with a Shaw lady that whistles."

"But I don't know anything about the 'missing link'!" continued Miss Shaw.

"Well, you see we chose that subject because they have been talking about it in the Debating Society, and we knew it would arouse interest," she was assured. "Just bring in a reference to it every now and then, and it'll be all right."

"Open the meeting with a song so that I can think for a minute and then I'll see what can be done," said Miss Shaw pluckily. As the expectant audience, led by the chairman, sang with patriotic fervor "The Star Spangled Banner" and "America," the shipwrecked lecturer managed to seize a straw of inspiration that turned in her grasp magically into a veritable life-preserver. "It is easy," she said to herself. "Woman is the missing link in our government. I'll give them a suffrage speech along that line."

Miss Shaw has labored many years for the Cause. She worked with courage, dignity, and unfailing common sense and good humor, in the day of small things when the suffrage pioneers were ridiculed by both men and women as a band of unwomanly "freaks" and fanatics. She has lived to see the Cause steadily grow in following and influence, and State after State (particularly those of the growing, progressive West) call upon women to share equally with men many of the duties of citizenship and social service. She has seen that in such States there is no disposition to go back to the old order of things, and that open-minded people freely admit that it is only a question of time until the more conservative parts of the country will fall into line and equal suffrage become nation wide.

Her days have been rich in happy work, large usefulness, and inspiring friendships. Many honors have been showered upon her both in her own country and abroad; but she has always looked upon the work which she has been privileged to do as making the best—and the most honorable—part of her life.

Once, while attending a general conference of women in Berlin, she won the interest and real friendship of a certain Italian princess, who invited her to visit at her castle in Italy and also to go with her to her mother's castle in Austria. As Miss Shaw was firm in declining these distinguished honors, the princess begged an explanation.

"Because, my dear princess," Miss Shaw explained, "I am a working-woman."

"Nobody need know that," murmured the princess, calmly.

"On the contrary, it is the first thing I should explain," was the reply.

"But why?" demanded the princess.

"You are proud of your family, are you not?" asked Miss Shaw. "You are proud of your great line?"

"Assuredly," replied the princess.

"Very well," continued Miss Shaw. "I am proud, too. What I have done I have done unaided, and, to be frank with you, I rather approve of it. My work is my patent of nobility, and I am not willing to associate with those from whom it would have to be concealed or with those who would look down upon it."

Anna Howard Shaw's autobiography, which she calls "The Story of a Pioneer," is an absorbingly interesting and inspiring narrative. It gives with refreshing directness and wholesome appreciation the story of her struggles and her work, together with revealing glimpses of some of her comrades in the Cause; it is at once her own story and the story of the pioneer days of the movement to which she gave her rich gifts of mind and character. In conclusion she quotes a speech of a certain small niece, who was overheard trying to rouse her still smaller sister to noble indifference in the face of the ridicule of their playmates, who had laughed when they had bravely announced that they were suffragettes.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself," she demanded, "to stop just because you are laughed at once? Look at Aunt Anna! She has been laughed at for hundreds of years!"

"I sometimes feel," added the Champion of the Cause, "that it has indeed been hundreds of years since my work began; and then again it seems so brief a time that, by listening for a moment, I fancy I can hear the echo of my childish voice preaching to the trees in the Michigan woods. But, long or short, the one sure thing is that, taking it all in all, the fight has been worth while. Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great Cause more than life itself, and to have the privilege throughout life of working for that Cause."