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, but very few families could afford such luxuries.
One of the recollections of Grandmother Anthony's house is of the little closet under the parlor stairs, where was set the tub of maple sugar, and, while the elders were chatting over neighborhood affairs, the children would gather like bees around this tub and have a feast. Always when they left, they were loaded down with apples, doughnuts, caraway cakes and other toothsome things which little ones love. Along the edges of the pantry shelves hung rows of shining pewter porringers, and the pride of the children's lives was to eat "cider toast" out of them. This was made by toasting a big loaf of brown bread before the fire, peeling off the outside, toasting it again, and finally pouring over these crusts hot sweetened water and cider. The dish, however, which was relished above all others was "hasty pudding," cooked slowly for hours, then heaped upon a platter in a great cone, the center scooped out and filled with sweet, fresh butter and honey or maple syrup.