“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Behind the shop was another room that served as a kitchen and, you might say, parlor. In any case it was the family’s social room. Behind this was a storeroom with earthen floor, and a shed. An imbecilic boy sometimes did errands for Throckmorton about the shop. He slept in the shed. Lessie had already had and lost 4 children. One actually lived to be 18 and was born when Lessie was very young. The others died in childbirth or in the first year. Throckmorton had wanted a son to carry on his shop. The child who died at 18 would have been such a boy, and Throckmorton never really recovered from the lad’s death. He died incidentally of pneumonia: took sick and died within three days.

They married over the objection of her family. He actually had a small pharmacy which he ran himself, in Boston. On the side he sold whatever merchandise idiotic men and women would buy to secure lovers. Behind the respectable scenes such concern was high, and many a good churchgoer let ministers in the front door while they collected bottles supposedly filled to the brim with fleshy incentives in hidden back rooms.