Susan was very intelligent and precocious. At the age of three she was
sent to the grandmother's to remain during the advent of the fourth
baby at home, and while there was taught to spell and read. Her memory
was phenomenal, and she had an insatiable ambition, especially for
learning the things considered beyond a girl's capacity.

The mother was most charitable, always finding time amidst her own
family cares to go among the sick and poor of the neighborhood. One of
Susan's childish grievances, which she always remembered, was that the
"Sunday-go-to-meeting" dresses of the three little Anthony girls were
lent to the children of a poor family to wear at the funeral of their
mother, while she and her sisters had to wear their old ones. She
thought these were good enough to lend. She had no toys or dolls except
of home manufacture, but her rag baby and set of broken dishes afforded
just as much happiness as children nowadays get from a roomful of
imported playthings.

To go to school the children had to pass Grandmother Read's, and they
were always careful to start early enough to stop there for a fresh
cheese curd and a drink of "coffee," made by browning crusts of rye and
Indian bread, pouring hot water over them and sweetening with maple
sugar. Then in the evening they would stop again for some of the
left-over, cold boiled dinner, which was served on a great pewter
platter, a big piece of pork or beef in the center and, piled all
round, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, carrots, etc. The story runs
that, when the mother remonstrated with the children for bothering the
grandmother for what they could have at home, Susan replied, "Why,
grandma's potato peelings are better than your boiled dinners." The
Anthonys and Reads used white flour and real coffee on state occasions,