[p. 87]
The habits formed in these early days, habits of simplicity, moderation, temperance and self-restraint in all material things, with an abhorrence of falsehood and injustice of any kind, remained with her through a long life, consecrating her to that gospel which anoints to ‘preach deliverance to the captive’ and to ‘set at liberty them that are bruised.’
Thomas Coffin's house in Boston was on the north side of Green street, a little below Chardon street. The garden behind the house sloped down to the fields, beyond which the Causeway crossed to Charlestown. From her window the little girl had an unobstructed view of the Charles and the Mystic rivers, with Bunker Hill beyond, and could hear the sound of travel on the draw-bridges. Green street was then a select, if not a fashionable, neighborhood, soon made more desirable by the erection of a block of dwelling houses on Bowdoin square, which, from their handsome finish, mahogany doors and window seats, became the admiration and talk of that part of the town. Lucretia was often taken by her father to see them while they were being built. He also used to walk with her on First Day afternoons out Marlboro street, now Washington, to the Neck, where the high tide washed up on both sides of the road, then back by the way of Charles street, on the bank of the broad Back Bay, or by the pretty gardens and fine residences on Franklin and Summer streets.
At first the children attended a private school, but afterwards, at the wish of their father, were sent to the public school of the district ‘to mingle with all classes without distinction.’ Lucretia wrote afterwards concerning this change, ‘It was the custom then to send the children of such families as ours to select schools, but my parents feared that this would minister to a feeling of class pride, which they felt was sinful to cultivate in their children, and this I am glad to remember, because it gave me a feeling of sympathy for the patient and struggling poor which, but for this experience, I might never have known.’
