CHAPTER V.
MOTHER AND SON.
He knew where he should find her.

There was a little, low work-room adjoining the kitchen that was his mother's sanctum.

There stood her work-basket--there were always piles and piles of work, begun or finished; and there also her few books at hand, to be glanced into in rare snatches of leisure in her busy life.
The old times New England house mother was not a mere unreflective drudge of domestic toil.

She was a reader and a thinker, keenly appreciative in intellectual regions.

The literature of that day in New England was sparse; but whatever there was, whether in this country or in England, that was noteworthy, was matter of keen interest, and Mrs.Pitkin's small library was very dear to her.