Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/37

Rh to any study of Mrs. Eddy and her career. As child and woman she suffered from this condition, and its existence explains some phases of her nature and certain of her acts, which otherwise might be difficult to understand and impossible to estimate.

Until Mary's fifteenth year the routine of life at the farm was unbroken except for the departure from home of her two eldest brothers to start life for themselves, and the death of her grandmother Baker. In choosing their occupations, Mark Baker's sons turned away from the farm, new opportunities having been opened by the expanding industrial and commercial life of the country. Samuel, the eldest, went to Boston, in company with a neighbour's son, George Washington Glover, to learn the trade of a stone mason, as the quarries of New Hampshire had then been recently opened. Albert, the second son, had a higher ambition. He prepared himself for college and entered Dartmouth. He was graduated in 1834, and immediately went to Hillsborough Center, N. H., to study law in the office of Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States. Under the influence of Pierce young Baker entered politics. He served one term as Assemblyman in the State Legislature, and received the nomination for Representative in Congress; but he died in 1841 before the election. He was then only thirty-one years old, and his character and ability seemed to justify the high opinion of his friends, who regarded him as a coming man.

The death of the elder Mrs. Baker occurred in January, 1835, and early the following year Mark Baker sold the homestead and moved his family to a farm near the village of Sanbornton