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Under these painful circumstances I found that Mr. Packard had only been telling me the simple truth when he said, that:

"For twenty years I have given you a home to live in -- and also allowed you the privilege of taking care of my own children in it -- and to me alone are you indebted for these privileges -- as by law you have no legal right to my home, my property, or my children while I live!"

Finding I could not prosecute my husband for doing a legal act, and also that he had put his property out of his own hands to prevent his paying any bills I might contract, I found that necessity was laid upon me to become my own protector.

CHAPTER V.
Defense of my Right to Property.

I therefore went to Kankakee to get out "a replevy" to get possession of my own things at Deacon Dole's, or at least, so many of them as would furnish me a room decently for my accommodation.

But, to my sorrow, I found that a married woman could not even replevy her own stolen property -- that I was literally outlawed, so far as legal rights and self-protection were concerned, as much so as an "infant, idiot, insane or criminal."

And these rights were not denied on the plea that I was an insane person, for a jury of my country had just pronounced me sane, and entitled to all the rights and privileges of a sane person; but the right of citizenship was denied me simply, because I was a married woman, and therefore I was no longer an individual before the law.

With equal propriety, as it seemed to me, might I have been informed:

"You have no right to eat or sleep now that you are a married woman, for you are no longer an individual before the law!"

If the married woman has no right to her home, no right to her food, or property to buy food with, and no right to her children, what right has she to be hungry or to be cold, or to desire offspring, if she is a "nonenity" or a chattel, as is the case while she is a married woman, under the common law?

As the laws of my country denied me the right to my own property, as this furniture was bought with my own patrimony, I concluded I would use the law of justice as my claim to my own things, in defiance of human enactments by which justice was denied me.

As my furniture, was too heavy for me to lift without assistance, and as I had no team to transport it from Mr. Dole's to my room, a distance of about two miles, I was obliged to hire help to get it for me, and therefore engaged six men with three teams to help me, and we proceeded to Deacon Dole's for the purpose of quietly taking my own things into my own possession.

Upon arriving there, and finding no one in the house except his daughter, I led my men quietly into the room where I found my best furniture snugly packed, and told them to carry it to their wagons as fast as possible.

Meeting no opposition except the protest of his daughter, Laura, we soon cleared that room, and I went up stairs for my bedding, when I heard Mr. Dole's voice below stairs demanding what this meant. My men, of course, directed him to me, and we met on the stairs, while I was helping one of my men carry down one of my feather beds.

He stopped us, and said:

"What are you doing?"

"I am getting my own things."

"Show me your papers!"

"I did not come to show papers -- I simply came to get my own things."

Adding:

"Mr. Holden, carry my bed to your wagon!"

Mr. Dole closed the front door against him, and locked it, and put the key into his own pocket, while Mr. Holden looked to me for directions. Said I:

"Mr. Holden, pass out the back-door with your load!"

He did so, while I retreated to the chamber in pursuit of more articles. Finding a pile of my own bedclothes, I took them and threw them over the banister, down stairs to my men, who were there to take them, while Mr. Haslet detained Mr. Dole, by an argument in defense of their act.

I then went into his pantry and took articles from "thence which belonged to me and gave them to my men to put into their wagons.

Mr. Dole headed them again, and said:

"You shall not take them!"

"Go ahead with the things, gentlemen!" said I.

Which they did.

I then looked overhead in his back-kitchen and saw some of my bedsteads, and said:

"Gentlemen, I must have one bedstead to sleep upon. Take down one of these bedsteads and I will not ask you to get anything more."

They tried to do so, but Mr. Dole interfered, and in the struggle one light of glass was broken in Mr. Dole's window.

I apologized to Mr. Dole, adding:

"I will repair it."

And accordingly sent a glazier the next day to replace, it, but Mr. Dole would not allow him to do it.

After another short but lively contest about some boxes of books which Mr. Dole said did not belong to him, and which Mr. Haslet said he would therefore claim for my benefit, we left, but not until I had, in the hearing of all the witnesses, which, with Mr. Dole's hired men and his wife, in addition to my own men, now formed quite a company, distinctly stated: