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the Bradford Seminary, which is now a junior college and still exists. One of her aunts had been the founder of it.

There were a lot of blue-stocking women around New England, so that the fact that a woman knew a great deal was no strange idea. They were not sat on and called little darlings. Nobody ever said of a New England woman what Mr. T. Lamar Caudle said of his wife, “I hoped the little dear wouldn't want any more.” No New England man, so far as I knew, ever said or thought anything like that. They were not “little dears.” They were pretty much treated as grown women. I don't know why. Perhaps they were closer to the pioneer. At any rate, the pioneer tradition came down. Women bore just as much of the agony of the early settlements as the men did. Women defended their homes against the Indians. When the husband was lost at sea, they took over. All those were close enough in the background so that it was not considered that women were the weaker vessel very much. They were competent and regarded as competent.

There were also a great many women in commerce early in New England. They ran their own stores and owned them. They made comfortable little fortunes out of various kinds of stores and shops. I remember hearing people say that it was a considerable surprise to have the women of my mother's generation going to work in the department stores. They