because he was brave and honorable and a scholar; how she recognized his bravery because he had persisted in his determination to go to college; and his honor, because he had never cried out against the hardship of labor that went hand in hand with his studies.
“And I want very much to be a scholar, too,” she said.
“A scholar, and why, little sister?”
“Because when I grow up I shall write a book; and I must be wise to do it. I must be as great a scholar as you or Mr. Franklin Pierce. Already I have read Young’s ‘Night Thoughts,’ and I understand it.”
“Well, sister,” said Albert Baker seriously, “we will have this for a secret and I will teach you. You are still a very little girl, you know; but study your grammar and my Latin grammar. Next summer when I’m home I will teach you to read Latin. Does that make you happy?”
Ah, the deep embrace when Mary flung herself into her brother’s arms! Albert Baker was true to his word. He taught his sister during all his vacations. Mrs. Eddy has said that at ten she was as familiar with Lindley Murray as with the Westminster Catechism which she had studied with her sisters every Sunday since her babyhood. During the four years of her brother’s undergraduate work she read with him moral science, natural philosophy, and mastered the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew grammars. He was an able teacher and she an apt pupil. A friend wrote of him after his death that he was
