Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/39

Rh two-story wooden building, painted red. The district school occupied the lower floor, while the upper room was used for a small private school, where the higher English branches were taught. After a time these upper classes came to be known as the "academy," and it was here that Dyer H. Sanborn, the author of Sanborn's Grammar, taught for five years at a later date. Mary was then nearing her fifteenth birthday, and as she had received almost no instruction at Bow, the family hoped that another attempt at school might be more successful.

It is one proof of Mary's remarkable personality that her old associates remember her, even as a child, so clearly. The Baker family was not one to be readily forgotten in any community, and Mary had all the Baker characteristics, besides a few impressive ones on her own account. The writer has talked with scores of Mary Baker's contemporaries in the New Hampshire villages where she lived, and in their descriptions of her, their recollections of her conduct, and their estimates of her character, there is a remarkable consistency. Allowance must always be made, in dealing with the early life of a famous person, for the dishonour of a prophet in his own country. Such allowance has been made here, and nothing is set down which is not supported by the testimony of many witnesses among her neighbours and relatives and associates.

When Mary attended the district school in Tilton, she is remembered as a pretty and graceful girl, delicately formed, and with extremely small hands and feet. Her face was too long and her forehead too high to answer the requirements of perfect beauty, but her complexion was clear and of a delicate colour, and her waving brown hair was abundant and always