Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/75

Rh named after his father. Mrs. Glover's life for a time was despaired of. She was far too ill to nurse her child and Mark Baker carried the infant to the home of Amos Morrison, a locomotive builder, whose wife had given birth to twins a few days before George Glover was born. Of these one had died, leaving the mother with a little girl, Asenath. This mother took Mary's child to her breast with her own and both thrived.

Mahala Sanborn, daughter of a blacksmith, was engaged to nurse Mrs. Glover, but her father would sit for long hours by his daughter's bed, often taking her in his arms and rocking her gently like a child. The roads were strewn with tan-bark and straw, and the house was hushed as if death had invaded it. When the long struggle for life ended in a feeble victory and the babe was brought home again, the young mother was very happy. Her widowed heart found comfort in maternal expression. He was a vigorous, robust infant, and to her had the eyes and smile of his father. But it seemed she was too tender and too devoted, too weak physically to exercise a mother's care, and when she had overtaxed herself her parents would send little George home with Mahala Sanborn, or it may be they merely permitted the spinster nurse to take him, indulging her fondness. This was not well, as later events proved.

A significant fact in relation to the child's infancy is found in the birth of another grandson to Mark Baker a few months later. Abigail Tilton's first child was born in June of the following year and she