Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/211

Rh Mrs. Eddy was not a very marked example of New England housewifely thrift, and she was pretty generally criticised for her "slack" housekeeping and her inattention to her children. The children, indeed, grew up as they would, satisfying their hunger from the "mush-pot" in which they boiled the cornmeal porridge which formed their main diet, and regulating their habits and conduct, each to suit himself. They met with no interference from their mother, who was much away from home. Every morning after the children had been sent over to the district school, which was only a few steps from the house, it was Mrs. Eddy's invariable custom to hitch up her horse and set forth on a trip through the country or to the neighbouring towns. This drive usually lasted all day, and it was the one thing that was performed with promptness and regularity in the Eddy ménage. To protect herself from rough weather on her expeditions, Mrs. Eddy devised an ingenious costume. From the front of her large poke bonnet she hung a shawl, in which was inserted a 9 x 10 pane of window glass, so placed that when she donned the costume the glass was opposite her face. This handy contrivance kept out the wind or rain or snow, without obscuring her vision; and thus equipped, Mrs. Eddy daily defied the vagaries of Vermont weather. The children of the village called her "the woman with the looking-glass."

Neighbourly comment and rebuke were lost on mother and children alike. They themselves enjoyed the unhampered life they led. It was only those who had a sense of order and regularity who suffered from the Eddy method, and they were all outside the Eddy family, unless indeed, it were Asa Eddy,