Yet it was not unhappy. Her mountain home was well kept, and her parents governed entirely by kindness, insisting upon gentle words, pleasant looks and thoughtfulness for others, on the part of all the children. Out of doors all was beautiful. The mountains, the rocks and streams, the fine trees which surrounded the house,—all gave the child much pleasure. To Mary it seemed as though the peaches and the strawberries raised on their own little farm were larger and more delicious than any others. Her parents had a wonderful faculty for making things grow, and the neighbors said that the plants in Mrs. Lyon's dooryard always bloomed more luxuriantly than any others in the neighborhood. When Mary was four years old her father died, but her mother, with the help of a hired man, continued the work of the farm and succeeded in supporting her family. Mary, as she grew up, did much of the housework and the spinning. In those days, nearly every family spun the thread to weave the cloth for their own garments, and by the time she was twelve years old, Mary had become expert at this work. At the age of seven, Mary walked two miles to school. She delighted in her studies and made such rapid progress that visitors to the school were astonished. Finally, the district school moved still farther away, and then Mary went to Ashfield to study, living there during school months and doing housework to pay for her board. Every spare moment was spent over her books and, when she was twelve years old, Mary Lyon determined to become a teacher. None of the other girls in the school had any definite purpose as to the future. The boys planned to become carpenters, farmers, teachers, lawyers, or ministers, but girls were supposed to become wives, mothers and housekeepers, for which offices no special training was thought necessary. Since that time, fortunately for the race, public opinion has changed in this respect; to-day, everybody knows that in order to manage a household well, to rear children, and to make a happy home, girls need to have a great deal of knowledge. When Mary Lyon announced her intention of being a teacher, the community was astonished, not to say shocked. It was predicted that she would fail. Men, not women, were meant for the teaching profession! Mary's proficiency in her studies, however, could not be denied. Early and late she pored over her books; in four days, to the amazement of her teacher, she learned all of Alexander's Grammar and recited it perfectly. When she was thirteen, her mother married again and went to live in Ohio, but Mary remained on the farm and kept house for her only brother. He paid her one dollar a week—a large sum for a girl to earn in the year 1810.