I was in frequent consultation with Judge Sackett and Mr. Bascom.  The latter was a member of the Constitutional Convention, then in session in Albany, and as he used to walk down whenever he was at home, to see how my work progressed, we had long talks, sitting on boxes in the midst of tools and shavings, on the status of women.  I urged him to propose an amendment to Article II, Section 3, of the State Constitution, striking out the word “male,” which limits the suffrage to men.  But, while he fully agreed with all I had to say on the political equality of women, he had not the courage to make himself the laughing-stock of the convention.  Whenever I cornered him on this point, manlike he turned the conversation to the painters and carpenters.  However, these conversations had the effect of bringing him into the first woman’s convention, where he did us good service.

In Seneca Falls my life was comparatively solitary, and the change from Boston was somewhat depressing.  There, all my immediate friends were reformers, I had near neighbors, a new home with all the modern conveniences, and well-trained servants.  Here our residence was on the outskirts of the town, roads very often muddy and no sidewalks most of the way, Mr. Stanton was frequently from home, I had poor servants, and an increasing number of children.  To keep a house and grounds in good order, purchase every article for daily use, keep the wardrobes of half a dozen human beings in proper trim, take the children to dentists, shoemakers, and different schools, or find teachers at home, altogether made sufficient work to keep one brain busy, as well as all the hands I could impress into the service.  Then, too, the novelty of housekeeping had passed away, and much that was once attractive in domestic life was now irksome.  I had so many cares that the company I needed for intellectual stimulus was a trial rather than a pleasure.

There was quite an Irish settlement at a short distance, and continual complaints were coming to me that my boys threw stones at their pigs, cows, and the roofs of their houses.  This involved constant diplomatic relations in the settlement of various difficulties, in which I was so successful that, at length, they constituted me a kind of umpire in all their own quarrels.  If a drunken husband was pounding his wife, the children would run for me.  Hastening to the scene of action, I would take Patrick by the collar, and, much to his surprise and shame, make him sit down and promise to behave himself.  I never had one of them offer the least resistance, and in time they all came to regard me as one having authority.  I strengthened my influence by cultivating good feeling.  I lent the men papers to read, and invited their children into our grounds; giving them fruit, of which we had abundance, and my children’s old clothes, books, and toys.  I was their physician, also—­with my box of homeopathic medicines I took charge of the men, women, and children in sickness.  Thus the most amicable relations were established, and, in any emergency, these poor neighbors were good friends and always ready to serve me.