* * *

The mill was still of great interest to her and she watched every
operation closely in her spare time, longing to try her hand at the
work. One day when a "spooler" was ill, Susan and her sister Hannah
eagerly volunteered to take her place. Their father was ready to let
them try, pleased by their interest and curious to see what they could
do, but their mother protested that the mill was no place for
children. Finally Susan's earnest pleading won her mother's reluctant
consent, and the two girls drew lots for the job. It went to
twelve-year-old Susan on the condition that she divide her earnings
with Hannah. Every day for two weeks she went early to the mill in her
plain homespun dress, her straight hair neatly parted and smoothed
over her ears. Proudly she tended the spools. She was skillful and
quick, and received the regular wage of $1.50 a week, which she
divided with Hannah, buying with her share six pale blue coffee cups
for her mother who had allowed her this satisfying adventure.

A few weeks before her thirteenth birthday, Susan became a member of
the Society of Friends which met in nearby Easton, New York, and
learned to search her heart and ask herself, "Art thou faithful?"
Parties, dancing, and entertainments were generally ruled out of her
life as sinful, and rarely were a temptation, but occasionally her
mother, remembering her own good times, let her and her sisters go to
parties at the homes of their Presbyterian neighbors, and for this her
father was criticized at Friends' Meeting. Condemning bright colors,
frills, and jewelry as vain and worldly, Susan accepted plain somber
clothing as a mark of righteousness, and when she deviated to the
extent of wearing the Scotch-plaid coat which her mother had bought
her, she wondered if the big rent torn in it by a dog might not be
deserved punishment for her pride in wearing it.

That same year, the family moved into their new brick house of fifteen
rooms, with hard-finish plaster walls and light green woodwork, the
finest house in that part of the country. Here Susan's brother Merritt
was born the next April, and her two-year-old sister, Eliza, died.

Susan, Guelma, and Hannah continued their studies longer than most
girls in the neighborhood, for Quakers not only encouraged but
demanded education for both boys and girls. As soon as Susan and her
sister Guelma were old enough, they taught the "home" school in the
summer when the younger