The profession of teacher did not appeal to hard-headed Humphrey Anthony, and when Daniel came back with his brain full of ambitious projects and with a thorough distaste for farming, and his sisters, with many airs and graces and a feeling of superiority over the girls in the neighborhood, Father Anthony declared that no more children of his should go away to boarding-school.  The fact that young Daniel was skilled in mechanics and mathematics, able to superintend intelligently all the work on the farm and to make a finer scythe than any man in the shop, did not modify the father’s opinion.  When John, the next boy, was old enough and the mother began to urge that he be sent to school, the father offered him his choice to go or to stay at home and work that year for $100.  This was a large sum for those days, it out-weighed the mother’s arguments, John remained at home and regretted it all the rest of his life.

[Illustration:  West end of kitchen in old homestead.]

The Anthony and Read farms were adjoining a mile east of Adams, and lay upon the first level or “bench” of the Green mountains.  From their door-yards the ascent of the mountains began, and only the Hoosac in a deep ravine separated them from the base of “Old Greylock.”  The crops were raised on the “intervale” and the cattle pastured on the mountain side.  Adams was then a sleepy New England village, and the Hoosac was a lovely stream, whose waters were used for the flocks and for the grist and saw-mills; but in later years the village became a manufacturing center and the banks of the pretty river were lined for miles with great factories.

In early times wealthy Quakers had a school in their home or door-yard for their own children.  Those of the neighborhood were allowed to attend at a certain price, and in this way undesirable pupils could be kept out.  At the Anthony residence this little school-house stood beneath a great weeping willow beside the front gate, and among the pupils was Lucy Read.  She was the playmate of the sisters, and young Dan was the torment of their lives, jumping out at them from unexpected corners, eavesdropping to learn their little secrets and harassing them in ways common to boys of all generations, and she never hesitated to inform him that he was “the hatefullest fellow she ever knew.”  When Daniel returned from boarding-school with all the prestige of several years’ absence, and was made master of the little home-school, one of his pupils was this same Lucy Read, now a tall, beautiful girl with glossy brown hair, large blue eyes and a fine complexion, the belle of the neighborhood.  The inevitable happened, childish feuds were forgotten, and teacher and pupil decided to become husband and wife.  Then arose a formidable difficulty.  The Anthonys were Quakers, the Reads were Baptists, and a Quaker was not permitted to “marry out of meeting.”  Love laughed at rules and restrictions eighty years ago, just as