of youthful pastimes, went still further in making life pleasant for
the children. Through her influence the daughters secured many a pretty
article of wearing apparel, and, when there was a party whose hours
were later than the father approved, the mother managed to have them
spend the night with girls in the neighborhood.
When the family first moved to Battenville the children went to the
little old-fashioned district school taught by a man in winter and a
woman in summer. None of the men could teach Susan "long division" or
understand why a girl should insist upon learning it. One of the women
maintained discipline by means of her corset-board used as a ferule. As
soon as Mr. Anthony finished the brick store he set apart one room
upstairs for a private school, employed the best teachers to be had and
admitted only such children as he wished to associate with his own.
When the new house was built a large room was devoted to school
purposes. This was the first in that neighborhood to have a separate
seat for each pupil, and, although only a stool without a back, it was
a vast improvement on the long bench running around the wall, the same
height for big and little. The girls were taught sewing as carefully as
reading and spelling, and Susan was noted for her skill with the
needle. A sampler is still in existence which she made at the age of
eleven, a fine specimen of needle-work with the family record
surrounded by a wreath of strawberries all carefully wrought in
crewels. There is also a bedquilt, the pieces sewed together with the
fine "over-and-over" stitch, and there are ruffles hemmed with stitches
so tiny they scarcely can be distinguished. An early teacher was a
cousin, Nancy Howe,[4] who was followed by another cousin, Sarah
Anthony, a graduate of Rensselaer Quaker boarding-school. Among the
teachers was Mary Perkins, just graduated from Miss Grant's seminary at
Ipswich, Mass., and a pupil of Mary Lyon, founder of Mt. Holyoke. She
was their first fashionably educated teacher and taught them to recite
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