CHAPTER XIII

MISS STANTON'S REMINISCENCES, INCLUDING A PAPER BY MRS. WHEATON HERSELF

THE two friends, outside her own family, who stood nearest to Mrs. Wheaton in her old age were Miss Stanton and Miss Pike. These friends visited her almost every day, and told her all the little news of the Seminary. Miss Stanton says that Mrs. Wheaton showed remarkable delicacy in these interviews. She never quizzed, though she was interested in every detail. She was careful never to interfere in any way whatever with the management of the school. When a principal had once been appointed, she felt that that principal was always to be sustained. She wished the principal to take the full responsibility belonging to her, and the trustees to take the full responsibility belonging to them. It is true she watched them with a keen eye, yet she never interfered. She would not, for example, give Miss Stanton any advice on the subject of making women members of the Board of Trustees. Even when she was planning some large benefaction to the school, she was careful not to dictate in any way how it should be used. “I

should like to do so and so, if it is agreeable," was her usual formula when she proposed to introduce modern heating or lighting apparatus, or to add to the library or art department, or to buy a telescope, or to furnish the laboratory with compound microscopes. She never wished Miss Stanton to say to the trustees, "Mrs. Wheaton would like," etc. Both her great reserve and her dignity of character are shown by the fact that she never said anything to Miss Stanton in these intimate daily conferences about the Seminary that she would not have said before the whole Board of Trustees.

It was a heavy trial to Mrs. Wheaton when Miss Stanton decided, in 1897, to retire from teaching. Mrs. Wheaton was then eighty-eight years old, and she had hoped to have Miss Stanton by her side to the end. After that she yielded more and more to old age.

At the Memorial meeting of the New England Wheaton Club, in 1906, Miss Stanton read a paper of reminiscences, which is here given in full with the exception of a few introductory words of greeting to her own old pupils.

PAPER BY MISS A. ELLEN STANTON

Those were very happy years, and they have left many “beautiful pictures hanging on memory's wall." Standing out in relief are my pleasant rela

tions with Mrs. Wheaton, whose friendship I highly prized. It was her pleasure to listen to, and mine to relate to her, the little daily happenings in the home life at the Seminary. Seldom a day passed that I did not visit her; and many a time, as I entered the box-bordered walk that led to her front door, has that door opened before I reached it, and there would Mrs. Wheaton be standing with her smiling welcome. She never tired of hearing about the Seminary, or of talking over plans for its welfare, for it was the centre of her most cherished hopes it was her idol, if so good a woman could have an idol: at least, it was her child, the Minerva that sprang from her active brain, and it was very dear to her heart.

Mrs. Wheaton's was a symmetrically developed and therefore a well-balanced character, with that calm and serene temper that naturally resulted from it. I never heard her speak a fretful word. Her ideas were clearly cut and concisely expressed. I remember accompanying her once on a business and shopping tour when she was over eighty. She visited banks and brokers' offices, where she seemed as much at ease as in her own parlor. Her business was promptly and definitely stated, and no one's precious time was wasted. She was always treated with respectful deference. In shopping she knew exactly what she wanted, and concisely informed

the salesman in attendance. If the article was not to be found in his department, and he attempted to bring something else to her notice, as in hist opinion more desirable, she wasted no words, but with a dignified and courteous bow left him with his unaccepted remark on his hands.

If one may speak of "salient points" in a symmetrical character, I should say that system, order, and promptness were prominent. If she had an appointment with any one, she was sure to be on the spot at least ten minutes, if not half an hour before the time, and as long as she was able to attend public worship, she was one of the first to enter the church on a Sunday morning.

As she advanced in years, social functions became burdensome to her. The last time I remember her being present on such an occasion was at the celebration of her eightieth birthday in the Seminary drawing-room. The 27th of September has ever since been observed as a holiday by the school. The drawing-room presented a gay appearance in its brilliant decorations of autumn leaves. Mrs. Wheaton received the pupils as she sat in a large easy chair, and, as one by one they were presented to her, each laid a beautiful rose on the table beside her. It was a pretty picture the woman of fourscore with her smiling face, surrounded by the young girls and the roses.

For many years, Mrs. Wheaton spent

her summers at the Isles of Shoals. I remember one winter and spring she had not been as well as usual, and as the time drew near for her to leave home, she decided that she was too feeble to bear the fatigue of the long journey. Her friends felt a little anxious, as the air at the Shoals had been especially invigorating to her, and had generally acted as a tonic for the rest of the year. As the season advanced, she was induced to reconsider her decision. It was a hot, sultry day in July when she started in a wheel chair for the Norton station. She rested a few hours in Boston before taking the train for Portsmouth. She was greatly fatigued on her arrival there, but the boat-ride of an hour to the Islands seemed to revive her. A wheel chair awaited her at the wharf, and she was then taken over the bridge up the long walk, bordered on either side by scarlet poppies, to the hotel, where strong arms carried her up the long flight of stairs to her room. The windows were wide open, and she seated herself in a big rocking-chair to inhale the cool sea breezes. Presently she exclaimed, “Is not this air perfectly delicious!" From this time forth, her improvement was rapid. Her supper and breakfast were sent up to her room, but after this she was able, and preferred, to take her meals in the dining-hall; and in less than a