Often we were able to help each
other out of embarrassing situations, and one incident
of this kind occurred during our campaign in South
Dakota. We were holding a meeting on the hottest
Sunday of the hottest month in the year--August--
and hundreds of the natives had driven twenty,
thirty, and even forty miles across the country to
hear us. We were to speak in a sod church, but it
was discovered that the structure would not hold half
the people who were trying to enter it, so we decided
that Miss Anthony should speak from the door, in
order that those both inside and outside might hear
her. To elevate her above her audience, she was
given an empty dry-goods box to stand on.
This makeshift platform was not large, and men,
women, and children were seated on the ground
around it, pressing up against it, as close to the
speaker as they could get. Directly in front of Miss
Anthony sat a woman with a child about two years
old--a little boy; and this infant, like every one else
in the packed throng, was dripping with perspiration
and suffering acutely under the blazing sun. Every
woman present seemed to have brought children with
her, doubtless because she could not leave them
alone at home; and babies were crying and fretting
on all sides. The infant nearest Miss Anthony fretted
most strenuously; he was a sturdy little fellow with
a fine pair of lungs, and he made it very difficult for
her to lift her voice above his dismal clamor.
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