"Father was sometimes called by our neighbors a hard parent. He never was, it is true, demonstrative in his affection, but he was strictly just, and never harsh in his treatment of us. As I have often told you, he believed in work for himself and his family, and I have heard him say that sooner than have a child of his grow up idle, he would make him pick up stones in one lot, and throw them over into the next one. He considered that he had been generous in allowing brother Horace to leave home, or, as country people call it, 'giving him his time,' six years before he became of age, and he was willing at any time to allow his daughters to seek their fortunes away from home, should they desire to do so.
"This winter of 1826-27 was the last one that we four children spent at home together. The next year sister Arminda, although only twelve years old, opened a school in the little log-house upon our west farm—"
"When only twelve years old!" we interrupted in chorus; "pray whom did she teach? Babies?"
"No," replied mamma, "she had a dozen or fourteen pupils, little boys and girls, some of whom were older than herself, for very young children could not have walked that distance—three and four miles."
"But I should think," interposed Gabrielle, "that the scholars would have felt more inclined to play with Aunt Arminda, than to learn the lessons she gave them; she was such a child."
"Your aunt was tall and well-developed," replied mamma, "and had a natural air of dignity that gave her the appearance of being older than she really was. She did not find it difficult to impress her pupils with respect, or to enforce obedience."
"What did she teach them, Aunt Esther?" inquired Ida; "only the elementary branches, I suppose?"
"Reading, writing, and spelling," replied mamma; "arithmetic and grammar, geography, sewing and knitting."
"And how much did she make?" I inquired, being of a practical turn of mind at that moment.
"She was paid by the week," said mamma, "and received the same salary as the majority of school-mistresses in those primeval days; seventy-five cents and her board. She 'boarded around,' as the phrase was, among her pupils. This may seem very little to you, but you must remember that in those days a good milch cow cost only ten dollars, and everything else was proportionately cheap.