Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/99

Rh The new home was a little unpainted cottage off the main road. It was beside the stream in which was a mill-dam. John Kidder, a machinist and cabinet-maker, was their neighbor, and had an interest in the sawmill attached to the Patterson property. Other neighbors there were not far away. It was not a lonely or desolate spot. The town had a small library; to the church came different denominational preachers; the school had eighty-four pupils and was taught by a man who later held a position in the faculty of a Massachusetts college. Many physicians, lawyers, and clergymen now scattered over the United States came from this mountain village. Clergymen especially seemed to develop here, twenty having gone out into the world from this mountain nest in the past fifty years.

The Patterson home in exterior was not unlike its neighbors, but within it was different. Mrs. Patterson carried with her an atmosphere which was reflected in her surroundings. She was bedridden most of the time they lived here, yet her active mind secured perfect order, exquisite cleanliness, a shining radiance of books, prints, polished mahogany, and a cherished few gleaming bits of silver service and brass candlesticks. At first she had a housekeeper, but one day she took in a blind girl who came to her door seeking employment. The housekeeper protested and Mrs. Patterson allowed the housekeeper to go and retained the blind girl, who was with her for several years and in old age paid a beautiful tribute to Mrs. Eddy’s kindness. She spoke of her