[p. 88]
When she was thirteen years old she was sent with a younger sister to the Friends' boarding school at Nine Partners, N. Y., where her future husband, James Mott, was already a teacher on the boys' side of the house. In accordance with the practice of the Society of Friends, both boys and girls were admitted to the school, but they were not permitted to meet or speak to each other unless they were near relatives, when they might talk a little together on certain days over a certain corner of the fence that divided their playground. Like other spirited children, Lucretia sometimes rebelled and gave trouble to the authorities when they exercised what she called unreasonable severity and inflicted unfair punishment. Once when one of the boys, James Mott's cousin and a favorite with her, was shut in a dark closet on bread and water for what she thought a trifle, she contrived to get into the forbidden side of the house, where he was, and supply him with bread and butter under the door. She was quite human. She was also a capital mimic, in which art she doubtless often indulged mischievously. It is easy to imagine that while in the main she was a satisfactory pupil, she was not averse to playing the part of a thorn in the sides of her teachers. A favorite game with her was to ‘play meeting’ and imitate those preachers whose ‘gift’ had amused her.
I dwell somewhat lengthily, perhaps, on her early days, because it is encouraging to us struggling mortals, in hearing of a life that has become famous in maturity, to see in what small ways that life began, and under what limitations.
The principal teacher of the school at Nine Partners was an English woman, Susan Marriott, of uncommon acquirements, with a special fondness for the study of grammar, which liking she succeeded in imparting to her pupils. She was very critical of their pronunciation and their choice of language, making nice discriminations between words in a precise and antiquated style easily imitated by the mimic. An appreciative lover of English
