Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/28

6 Mark Baker and those who differed from him in business, politics, and religion. A quarrel over a question of business with his brother James resulted in a complete separation of the two families (although they lived as neighbours for years) from 1816 almost to the present time. A charge which he brought against a church brother was arbitrated for several years before church committees; and his local political quarrels during abolition days were frequent and bitter. He lived on the Bow farm from 1785 to 1836, and in Sanbornton Bridge (now Tilton) from 1836 until his death in 1865, and to those who knew him in these two communities he is still a vivid memory. In appearance he was tall and lean, his muscles hardened by labour. His iron jaw and tense gray eye bespoke determination and resistance. The very tap of his stick, as he tramped along the country roads, conveyed a challenge. His voice was terrific in power and volume. The Baker voice is a tradition in New Hampshire, and stories are told in Bow of the Baker brothers at work in distant fields upon their farms, thundering like gods to each other across the hills.

Mark's neighbours called him "Squire" Baker, and the younger folk called him "Uncle." They found him sharp at a bargain, but honest in his dealings, and while he paid his workers the smallest wages, he always sacredly kept his word, and in his narrow way he was a good citizen. He tried his friends by his fierce temper and his intense prejudices, which kept him, in one way and another, in a continual ferment. "A