I know that my mother was a very energetic, hard-working, and in every way strong woman, although I did not know it or think about it then. I know it now, for as I look back to my childhood and see the large family that she cared for, almost without help, I cannot understand how she did it all, especially as she managed to keep well informed on the topics of the day, and found more time for reading and study than any of her neighbors did. In the main, I think our family was like the other families of the neighborhood, with about the same dispositions, the same ideas and ideals,—if children can be said to have ideals,—that other people had. There were seven of us children, and we must have crowded the little home, to say nothing of the little income with which my father and mother raised us all. Our family life was not the ideal home-life of which we read in books; the fact is, I have never seen that sort of life amongst children,—or amongst grown people either, for that matter. If we loved each other very dearly, we were all too proud and well-trained to say a word about it, or to make any sign to show that it was true. When a number of us children were together playing the familiar games, we generally quarrelled and fought each other much more than was our habit when playing with our neighbors and our friends. In this too we were like all the rest of the families that I knew. It seems to me now that a very small matter was always enough to bring on a fight, and that we quarrelled simply because we liked to hurt each other; at least I can see no other reason why we did. We children were supposed to help with the chores around the house; but as near as I can remember, each one was always afraid that he would do more than his share. I recall a story in one of our school readers, which I read when very young; it was about two brothers, a large one and a small one, and they were carrying a pail on a pole, and the larger brother deliberately shoved the pail nearer to his end, so that the heavier load would fall on him; but I am sure that this incident never happened in our family, or in any other that I ever knew. Most home-life necessarily clusters around the mother; and so, of course, it must have been in our family. But my mother died when I was in my earlier teens, and her figure has not that clearness and distinctness that I wish it had. She seems now to have been a remarkable combination of energy and industry, of great kindness, and still of strong and controlling will; a woman who, under other conditions of life, and unhampered by so many children and such pressing needs, might have left her mark upon the world. But this was not to be; for she could not overlook the duties that lay nearest her for a broader or more ambitious life.