Mama was tall & slender and looked like Dot, only with Archie's coloring. She had long, slim hands, gentle ways, and a beautiful, true, soprano voice. She was always patient and kind. I never saw her cross or anything but gentle. The Lincolnville people still speak of her grace & her beautiful, unassuming manners. Like Bessie, she was never anything but a lady.
Her cup of joy was full when Archie was born, because she had always wanted a dark-eyed boy, but she only lived three years after he was born.
She cooked for a family of seven and kept us clean & well-fed, yet the only help she had was a woman who came in to wash. I don't see how she ever did it. I remember a plant stand full of geraniums in the upstairs hall, & a canary in the kitchen window and pieces of orris root in the bureau drawers to make our clothes smell dainty. I remember Dot & Archie lying on a blanket on the living-room floor with their bottles, wearing only diapers. I remember going to the park with Mama summer afternoons, with a bag of dried bread to feed the ducks. Archie, masculine even in his infancy, always demanded a "'tick" to pound on the carriage with. Archie & Dot always wore freshly-laundered white coats, of piqué or linen.
Mama never went away from home, except to church & the park & to out-door services on Sunday afternoons in the summer and to the Memorial Day parades. She got deathly sick when she rode on street-cars, so I suppose preferred to stay home. I remember Mama & Bessie & Aunt Bell, when she was in training at the Malden Hospital. I remember their gentle, whispering voices & bursts of gay laughter, as they sat in the kitchen together, talking. In the late afternoons, Mama would sit & rock Dot & Archie, & Isabel & I would sit on the couch & we all would sing. She knew lots of funny songs as well as ballads. When just the children were home, she would play the piano, but never before Bessie or Papa. I was delighted when I learned that she had been a teacher, and very surprised & pleased when I found out that she spoke fluent French.
She must have been a wonderful cook, because I can still remember the big, fluffy loaves of bread with buttered crusts, and cinnamon rolls dripping syrup and wonderful apricot pie. She made very rich preserves of citron and lemon, and small, spicy doughnuts that were tender as a dream.
She was gentle & thoughtful, always reminding me in her sweet way to thank people for kindnesses to me, to appreciate things done for me, to call on Grandma Bartlett - an elderly neighbor, who was bed-ridden, to be nice to old friends even if I had become more fond of a new one.
Her favorite color was blue and her favorite flower was the white violet. I could not understand that, when a child, because the blue ones were so much more colorful & spectacular. I used to go to a swamp behind the park to pick white violets for her and now, since they have become my own favorite flower, I can understand why she loved them - the delicate color, dainty curving stem with modestly hanging head, and most of all, the sweet unforgettable fragrance. Mama was like the white violet. Her life was modest and unassuming and self-forgetful, but it gave out a sweetness and a fragrance that cannot be forgotten, although more than forty years have passed. In my thoughtless, childish way, I took Mama for granted; but I can see now that - gentle & unassuming as she was - she was a true aristocrat, & probably the finest lady I have ever known.