‘[p. 85] of the smallest potatoes—the very smallest, remember—and roast them in the ashes.’ This was a great treat! The huge fireplace in the cellar, where the children held this feast, was the place where most of the family cooking was done. It is still there.
When it was the aunts' turn to visit Anna Coffin the children would be sent early to bed with permission to talk as long as they pleased, with the promise of reward the next day, but this was little comfort to Lucretia, who always longed to stay down stairs to hear the conversation of the grown people. Although not the oldest of the little family, Lucretia was most her mother's companion, and shared in the care and responsibility of the household. If a message were to be carried or an errand done, she, quick and reliable, was generally chosen for it. But this very readiness made her impatient with the slowness or stupidity of others.
Her parents were careful to preserve in their children the peculiarities of the religious society to which they belonged—Friends, or Quakers—training them in the daily observances and in regular attendance at ‘Meeting’ on First Day, as Friends call Sunday, where they learned to sit still without restlessness or drowsiness, and to understand the value of silence. This latter was difficult for such a quick, restless child as Lucretia, but though restless she was not unruly, and was quick to appropriate to her own needs the spiritual admonitions of the preachers, as if their words were especially addressed to her. Conscious of a wayward spirit, she had many difficulties to overcome, but she tried to do right, praying for strength to overcome a naturally hasty temper. Her reading book at school was called ‘Mental Improvement,’ by Priscilla Wakefield, including pictures of slave ships, as presented by Thomas Clarkson, the English philanthropist. These attracted her attention, and early enlisted her sympathy for the slave and fostered her abhorrence of the institution of slavery. One of her favorite couplets from the copybook was
