A beloved member of the household when Mary was born was the venerable grandmother Baker who received this babe into her arms with a special solicitation to God. She conferred upon it the name Mary, which was her own name and that of her mother before her. Grandmother Baker’s chair stood by the fireplace. She overlooked the farmyard, and its busy occupations when she glanced up from her knitting; or, sending her glances out through the front door, open on a heated summer day, she saw the bees drowsing in the flowers, the bending grain beyond where the South winds made billows of light and shade. A precious care was in her charge. Ever and anon she touched with her foot the rocker of the cradle, or bent to scan the features of the babe sleeping there and so through the heat of August and the cool September she was the good angel watching and guarding.
The household tasks were not light for the mother of early New England days; she could not brood over a cradle. Mrs. Baker was industrious and placid of spirit, and the placidity meant much for the spirit of her home. She could brew and bake and care for her dairy, scour and sew and weave and dye — all women did this in those days — and it is reported of Mrs. Baker that she was “capable.” But Mrs. Baker found time for the unusual, for visiting the sick and administering to the needy; for entertaining her friends and maintaining the social life; for overseeing her children’s education and holding the family to high spiritual ideals. It is not sufficient to say of her that she was a capable, conscientious New England woman; this she was,
