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diff --git a/2293.txt b/2293.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9bf65d --- /dev/null +++ b/2293.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6998 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A New England Girlhood, by Lucy Larcom + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A New England Girlhood + +Author: Lucy Larcom + +Posting Date: March 21, 2009 [EBook #2293] +Release Date: August, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD *** + + + + +Produced by Susan L. Farley. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +Project Gutenberg/Make a Difference Day Project 1999. + + + + + +A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD + +OUTLINED FROM MEMORY + + +By + +LUCY LARCOM + + + + + I dedicated this sketch + To my girlfriends in general; + And in particular + To my namesake-niece, + Lucy Larcom Spaulding. + + + Happy those early days, when I + Shined in my angel-infancy! + --When on some gilded cloud or flower + My gazing soul would dwell an hour, + And in those weaker glories spy + Some shadows of eternity:-- + Before I taught my tongue to wound + My conscience by a sinful sound;-- + But felt through all this fleshy dress + Bright shoots of everlastingness. + + HENRY VAUGHAN + + + The thought of our past years in me doth breed + Perpetual benediction. + + WORDSWORTH + + + + +PREFACE + +THE following sketch was written for the young, at the suggestion of +friends. + +My audience is understood to be composed of girls of all ages, and of +women who have not forgotten their girlhood. Such as have a friendly +appreciation of girls--and of those who write for them--are also +welcome to listen to as much of my narrative as they choose. All others +are eavesdroppers, and, of course, have no right to criticise. + +To many, the word "autobiography" implies nothing but conceit and +egotism. But these are not necessarily its characteristics. If an apple +blossom or a ripe apple could tell its own story, it would be, still +more than its own, the story of the sunshine that smiled upon it, of +the winds that whispered to it, of the birds that sang around it, of +the storms that visited it, and of the motherly tree that held it and +fed it until its petals were unfolded and its form developed. + +A complete autobiography would indeed be a picture of the outer and +inner universe photographed upon one little life's consciousness. For +does not the whole world, seen and unseen go to the making up of every +human being? The commonest personal history has its value when it is +looked at as a part of the One Infinite Life. Our life--which is the +very best thing we have--is ours only that we may share it with Our +Father's family, at their need. If we have anything, within us worth +giving away, to withhold it is ungenerous; and we cannot look honestly +into ourselves without acknowledging with humility our debt to the +lives around us for whatever of power or beauty has been poured into +ours. + +None of us can think of ourselves as entirely separate beings. Even an +autobiographer has to say "we" much oftener than "I." Indeed, there may +be more egotism in withdrawing mysteriously into one's self, than in +frankly unfolding one's life--story, for better or worse. There may be +more vanity in covering, one's face with a veil, to be wondered at and +guessed about, than in drawing it aside, and saying by that act, +"There! you see that I am nothing remarkable." + +However, I do not know that I altogether approve of autobiography +myself, when the subject is a person of so little importance as in the +present instance. Still, it may have a reason for being, even in a +case like this. + +Every one whose name is before the public at all must be aware of a +common annoyance in the frequent requests which are made for personal +facts, data for biographical paragraphs, and the like. To answer such +requests and furnish the material asked for, were it desirable, would +interfere seriously with the necessary work of almost any writer. The +first impulse is to pay no attention to them, putting them aside as +mere signs of the ill-bred, idle curiosity of the age we live in about +people and their private affairs. It does not seem to be supposed +possible that authors can have any natural shrinking from publicity, +like other mortals. + +But while one would not willingly encourage an intrusive custom, there +is another view of the matter. The most enjoyable thing about writing +is that the relation between writer and reader may be and often does +become that of mutual friendship; an friends naturally like to know +each other in a neighborly way. + +We are all willing to gossip about ourselves, sometimes, with those who +are really interested in us. Girls especially are fond of exchanging +confidences with those whom they think they can trust; it is one of the +most charming traits of a simple, earnest-hearted girlhood, and they +are the happiest women who never lose it entirely. + +I should like far better to listen to my girl-readers' thoughts about +life and themselves than to be writing out my own experiences. It is to +my disadvantage that the confidences, in this case, must all be on one +side. But I have known so many girls so well in my relation to them of +schoolmate, workmate, and teacher, I feel sure of a fair share of their +sympathy and attention. + +It is hardly possible for an author to write anything sincerely without +making it something of an autobiography. Friends can always read a +personal history, or guess at it, between the lines. So I sometimes +think I have already written mine, in my verses. In them, I have found +the most natural and free expression of myself. They have seemed to set +my life to music for me, a life that has always had to be occupied with +many things besides writing. Not, however, that I claim to have written +much poetry: only perhaps some true rhymes: I do not see how there +could be any pleasure in writing insincere ones. + +Whatever special interest this little narrative of mine may have is due +to the social influences under which I was reared, and particularly to +the prominent place held by both work and religion in New England half +a century ago. The period of my growing-up had peculiarities which our +future history can never repeat, although something far better is +undoubtedly already resulting thence. Those peculiarities were the +natural development of the seed sown by our sturdy Puritan ancestry. +The religion of our fathers overhung us children like the shadow of a +mighty tree against the trunk of which we rested, while we looked up in +wonder through the great boughs that half hid and half revealed the +sky. Some of the boughs were already decaying, so that perhaps we began +to see a little more of the sky, than our elders; but the tree was +sound at its heart. There was life in it that can never be lost to the +world. + +One thing we are at last beginning to understand, which our ancestors +evidently had not learned; that it is far more needful for theologians +to become as little children, than for little children to become +theologians. They considered it a duty that they owed to the youngest +of us, to teach us doctrines. And we believed in our instructors, if we +could not always digest their instructions. We learned to reverence +truth as they received it and lived it, and to feel that the search for +truth was one chief end of our being. + +It was a pity that we were expected to begin thinking upon hard +subjects so soon, and it was also a pity that we were set to hard work +while so young. Yet these were both inevitable results of circumstances +then existing; and perhaps the two belong together. Perhaps habits of +conscientious work induce thought. Certainly, right thinking naturally +impels people to work. + +We learned no theories about "the dignity of labor," but we were taught +to work almost as if it were a religion; to keep at work, expecting +nothing else. It was our inheritance, banded down from the outcasts of +Eden. And for us, as for them, there was a blessing hidden in the +curse. I am glad that I grew up under these wholesome Puritanic +influences, as glad as I am that I was born a New Englander; and I +surely should have chosen New England for my birthplace before any +region under the sun. + +Rich or poor, every child comes into the world with some imperative +need of its own, which shapes its individuality. I believe it was +Grotius who said, "Books are necessities of my life. Food and clothing +I can do without, if I must." + +My "must-have" was poetry. From the first, life meant that to me. And, +fortunately, poetry is not purchasable material, but an atmosphere in +which every life may expand. I found it everywhere about me. The +children of old New England were always surrounded, it is true, with +stubborn matter of fact,--the hand to hand struggle for existence. But +that was no hindrance. Poetry must have prose to root itself in; the +homelier its earth-spot, the lovelier, by contrast, its +heaven-breathing flowers. + +To different minds, poetry may present different phases. To me, the +reverent faith of the people I lived among, and their faithful everyday +living, was poetry; blossoms and trees and blue skies were poetry. God +himself was poetry. As I grew up and lived on, friendship became to me +the deepest and sweetest ideal of poetry. To live in other lives, to +take their power and beauty into our own, that is poetry experienced, +the most inspiring of all. Poetry embodied in persons, in lovely and +lofty characters, more sacredly than all in the One Divine Person who +has transfigured our human life with the glory of His sacrifice,--all +the great lyrics and epics pale before that, and it is within the reach +and comprehension of every human soul. + +To care for poetry in this way does not make one a poet, but it does +make one feel blessedly rich, and quite indifferent to many things +which are usually looked upon as desirable possessions. I am sincerely +grateful that it was given to me, from childhood, to see life from this +point of view. And it seems to me that every young girl would be +happier for beginning her earthly journey with the thankful +consciousness that her life does not consist in the abundance of things +that she possesses. + +The highest possible poetic conception is that of a life consecrated to +a noble ideal. It may be unable to find expression for itself except +through humble, even menial services, or through unselfish devotion +whose silent song is audible to God alone; yet such music as this might +rise to heaven from every young girl's heart and character if she would +set it free. In such ways it was meant that the world should be filled +with the true poetry of womanhood. + +It is one of the most beautiful facts in this human existence of ours, +that we remember the earliest and freshest part of it most vividly. +Doubtless it was meant that our childhood should live on in us forever. +My childhood was by no means a cloudless one. It had its light and +shade, each contributing a charm which makes it wholly delightful in +the retrospect. + +I can see very distinctly the child that I was, and I know how the +world looked to her, far off as she is now. She seems to me like my +little sister, at play in a garden where I can at any time return and +find her. I have enjoyed bringing her back, and letting her tell her +story, almost as if she were somebody else. I like her better than I +did when I was really a child, and I hope never to part company with +her. + +I do not feel so much satisfaction in the older girl who comes between +her and me, although she, too, is enough like me to be my sister, or +even more like my young, undisciplined mother; for the girl is mother +of the woman. But I have to acknowledge her faults and mistakes as my +own, while I sometimes feel like reproving her severely for her +carelessly performed tasks, her habit of lapsing into listless +reveries, her cowardly shrinking from responsibility and vigorous +endeavor, and many other faults that I have inherited from her. Still, +she is myself, and I could not be quite happy without her comradeship. + +Every phase of our life belongs to us. The moon does not, except in +appearance, lose her first thin, luminous curve, nor her silvery +crescent, in rounding to her full. The woman is still both child and +girl, in the completeness of womanly character. We have a right to our +entire selves, through all the changes of this mortal state, a claim +which we shall doubtless carry along with us into the unfolding +mysteries of our eternal being. Perhaps in this thought lies hidden the +secret of immortal youth; for a seer has said that "to grow old in +heaven is to grow young." + +To take life as it is sent to us, to live it faithfully, looking and +striving always towards better life, this was the lesson that came to +me from my early teachers. It was not an easy lesson, but it was a +healthful one; and I pass it on to younger pupils, trusting that they +will learn it more thoroughly than I ever have. + +Young or old, we may all win inspiration to do our best, from the needs +of a world to which the humblest life may be permitted to bring +immeasurable blessings:-- + + "For no one doth know + What he can bestow, + What light, strength, and beauty may after him go: + Thus onward we move, + And, save God above, + None guesseth how wondrous the journey will prove." + + L.L. + BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS, + October, 1889. + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER + + I. UP AND DOWN THE LANE + II. SCHOOLROOM AND MEETING-HOUSE + III. THE HYMN-BOOK + IV. NAUGHTY CHILDREN AND FAIRY TALES + V. OLD NEW ENGLAND + VI. GLIMPSES OF POETRY + VII. BEGINNING TO WORK + VIII. BY THE RIVER + IX. MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS + X. MILL-GIRLS' MAGAZINES + XI. READING AND STUDYING + XII. FROM THE MERRIMACK TO THE MISSISSIPPI + + + + +A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD + + + +I. + +UP AND DOWN THE LANE. + +IT is strange that the spot of earth where we were born should make +such a difference to us. People can live and grow anywhere, but people +as well as plants have their habitat,--the place where they belong, and +where they find their happiest, because their most natural life. If I +had opened my eyes upon this planet elsewhere than in this northeastern +corner of Massachusetts, elsewhere than on this green, rocky strip of +shore between Beverly Bridge and the Misery Islands, it seems to me as +if I must have been somebody else, and not myself. These gray ledges +hold me by the roots, as they do the bayberry bushes, the sweet-fern, +and the rock-saxifrage. + +When I look from my window over the tree-tops to the sea, I could +almost fancy that from the deck of some one of those inward bound +vessels the wistful eyes of the Lady Arbella might be turned towards +this very hillside, and that mine were meeting hers in sympathy, across +the graves of two hundred and fifty years. For Winthrop's fleet, led by +the ship that bore her name, must have passed into harbor that way. +Dear and gracious spirit! The memory of her brief sojourn here has left +New England more truly consecrated ground. Sweetest of womanly +pioneers! It is as if an angel in passing on to heaven just touched +with her wings this rough coast of ours. + +In those primitive years, before any town but Salem had been named, +this whole region was known as Cape Ann Side; and about ten years after +Winthrop's arrival, my first ancestor's name appears among those of +other hardy settlers of the neighborhood. No record has been found of +his coming, but emigration by that time had grown so rapid that ships' +lists were no longer carefully preserved. And then he was but a simple +yeoman, a tiller of the soil; one who must have loved the sea, however, +for he moved nearer and nearer towards it from Agawam through Wenham +woods, until the close of the seventeenth century found his +descendants--my own great-great-grandfather's family--planted in a +romantic homestead-nook on a hillside, overlooking wide gray spaces of +the bay at the part of Beverly known as "The Farms." The situation was +beautiful, and home attachments proved tenacious, the family claim to +the farm having only been resigned within the last thirty or forty +years. + +I am proud of my unlettered forefathers, who were also too humbly proud +to care whether their names would be remembered or not; for they were +God-fearing men, and had been persecuted for their faith long before +they found their way either to Old or New England. + +The name is rather an unusual one, and has been traced back from Wales +and the Isle of Wight through France to Languedoc and Piedmont; a +little hamlet in the south of France still bearing it in what was +probably the original spelling-La Combe. There is a family shield in +existence, showing a hill surmounted by a tree, and a bird with spread +wings above. It might symbolize flight in times of persecution, from +the mountains to the forests, and thence to heaven, or to the free +skies of this New World. + +But it is certain that my own immediate ancestors were both indifferent +and ignorant as to questions of pedigree, and accepted with sturdy +dignity an inheritance of hard work and the privileges of poverty, +leaving the same bequest to their descendants. And poverty has its +privileges. When there is very little of the seen and temporal to +intercept spiritual vision, unseen and eternal realities are, or may +be, more clearly beheld. + +To have been born of people of integrity and profound faith in God, is +better than to have inherited material wealth of any kind. And to those +serious-minded, reticent progenitors of mine, looking out from their +lonely fields across the lonelier sea, their faith must have been +everything. + +My father's parents both died years before my birth. My grandmother had +been left a widow with a large family in my father's boyhood, and he, +with the rest, had to toil early for a livelihood. She was an earnest +Christian woman, of keen intelligence and unusual spiritual perception. +She was supposed by her neighbors to have the gift of "second sight"; +and some remarkable stories are told of her knowledge of distant events +while they were occurring, or just before they took place. Her dignity +of presence and character must have been noticeable. A relative of +mine, who as a very little child, was taken by her mother to visit my +grandmother, told me that she had always remembered the aged woman's +solemnity of voice and bearing, and her mother's deferential attitude +towards her: and she was so profoundly impressed by it all at the time, +that when they had left the house, and were on their homeward path +through the woods, she looked up into her mother's face and asked in a +whisper, "Mother, was that God?" + +I used sometimes to feel a little resentment at my fate in not having +been born at the old Beverly Farms home-place, as my father and uncles +and aunts and some of my cousins had been. But perhaps I had more of +the romantic and legendary charm of it than if I had been brought up +there, for my father, in his communicative moods, never wearied of +telling us about his childhood; and we felt that we still held a +birthright claim upon that picturesque spot through him. Besides, it +was only three or four miles away, and before the day of railroads, +that was thought nothing of as a walk, by young or old. + +But, in fact, I first saw the light in the very middle of Beverly, in +full view of the town clock and the Old South steeple. (I believe there +is an "Old South" in nearly all these first-settled cities and villages +of Eastern Massachusetts.) The town wore a half-rustic air of antiquity +then, with its old-fashioned people and weather-worn houses; for I was +born while my mother-century was still in her youth, just rounding the +first quarter of her hundred years. + +Primitive ways of doing things had not wholly ceased during my +childhood; they were kept up in these old towns longer than elsewhere. +We used tallow candles and oil lamps, and sat by open fireplaces. There +was always a tinder-box in some safe corner or other, and fire was +kindled by striking flint and steel upon the tinder. What magic it +seemed to me, when I was first allowed to strike that wonderful spark, +and light the kitchen fire! + +The fireplace was deep, and there was a "settle" in the chimney corner, +where three of us youngest girls could sit together and toast our toes +on the andirons (two Continental soldiers in full uniform, marching one +after the other), while we looked up the chimney into a square of blue +sky, and sometimes caught a snowflake on our foreheads; or sometimes +smirched our clean aprons (high-necked and long sleeved ones, known as +"tiers"), against the swinging crane with its sooty pot-hooks and +trammels. + +The coffee-pot was set for breakfast over hot coals, on a three-legged +bit of iron called a "trivet." Potatoes were roasted in the ashes, and +the Thanksgiving turkey in a "tin-kitchen," the business of turning the +spit being usually delegate to some of us, small folk, who were only +too willing to burn our faces in honor of the annual festival. + +There were brick ovens in the chimney corner, where the great bakings +were done; but there was also an iron article called a "Dutch oven," in +which delicious bread could be baked over the coals at short notice. +And there was never was anything that tasted better than my mother's +"firecake,"--a short-cake spread on a smooth piece of board, and set up +with a flat-iron before the blaze, browned on one side, and then turned +over to be browned on the other. (It required some sleight of hand to +do that.) If I could only be allowed to blow the bellows--the very old +people called them "belluses"--when the fire began to get low, I was a +happy girl. + +Cooking-stoves were coming into fashion, but they were clumsy affairs, +and our elders thought that no cooking could be quite so nice as that +which was done by an open fire. We younger ones reveled in the warm, +beautiful glow, that we look back to as to a remembered sunset. There +is no such home-splendor now. + +When supper was finished, and the tea-kettle was pushed back on the +crane, and the backlog had been reduced to a heap of fiery embers, then +was the time for listening to sailor yarns and ghost and witch legends. +The wonder seems somehow to have faded out of those tales of eld since +the gleam of red-hot coals died away from the hearthstone. The shutting +up of the great fireplaces and the introduction of stoves marks an era; +the abdication of shaggy Romance and the enthronement of elegant +Commonplace--sometimes, alas! the opposite of elegant--at the New +England fireside. + +Have we indeed a fireside any longer in the old sense? It hardly seems +as if the young people of to-day can really understand the poetry of +English domestic life, reading it, as they must, by a reflected +illumination from the past. What would "Cotter's Saturday Night" have +been, if Burns had written it by the opaque heat of a stove instead of +at his + + "Wee bit ingle blinkin' bonnilie?" + +New England as it used to be was so much like Scotland in many of its +ways of doing and thinking, that it almost seems as if that tender poem +of hearth-and-home life had been written for us too. I can see the +features of my father, who died when I was a little child, whenever I +read the familiar verse:-- + + "The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face + They round the ingle form a circle wide: + The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, + The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride." + +A grave, thoughtful face his was, lifted up so grandly amid that +blooming semicircle of boys and girls, all gathered silently in the +glow of the ruddy firelight! The great family Bible had the look upon +its leathern covers of a book that bad never been new, and we honored +it the more for its apparent age. Its companion was the Westminster +Assembly's and Shorter Catechism, out of which my father asked us +questions on Sabbath afternoons, when the tea-table had been cleared. +He ended the exercise with a prayer, standing up with his face turned +toward the wall. My most vivid recollection of his living face is as I +saw it reflected in a mirror while he stood thus praying. His closed +eyes, the paleness and seriousness of his countenance, awed me. I never +forgot that look. I saw it but once again, when, a child of six or +seven years, I was lifted to a footstool beside his coffin to gaze upon +his face for the last time. It wore the same expression that it did in +prayer; paler, but no longer care-worn; so peaceful, so noble! They +left me standing there a long time, and I could not take my eyes away. +I had never thought my father's face a beautiful one until then, but I +believe it must have been so, always. + +I know that he was a studious man, fond of what was called "solid +reading." He delighted in problems of navigation (he was for many years +the master of a merchant-vessel sailing to various European ports), in +astronomical calculations and historical computations. A rhyming genius +in the town, who undertook to hit off the peculiarities of well-known +residents, characterized my father as + + "Philosophic Ben, + Who, pointing to the stars, cries, Land ahead!" + +His reserved, abstracted manner,--though his gravity concealed a fund +of rare humor,--kept us children somewhat aloof from him; but my +mother's temperament formed a complete contrast to his. She was chatty +and social, rosy-cheeked and dimpled, with bright blue eyes and soft, +dark, curling hair, which she kept pinned up under her white lace +cap-border. Not even the eldest child remembered her without her cap, +and when some of us asked her why she never let her pretty curls be +visible, she said,-- + +"Your father liked to see me in a cap. I put it on soon after we were +married, to please him; I always have worn it, and I always shall wear +it, for the same reason." + +My mother had that sort of sunshiny nature which easily shifts to +shadow, like the atmosphere of an April day. Cheerfulness held sway +with her, except occasionally, when her domestic cares grew too +overwhelming; but her spirits rebounded quickly from discouragement. + +Her father was the only one of our grandparents who had survived to my +time,--of French descent, piquant, merry, exceedingly polite, and very +fond of us children, whom he was always treating to raisins and +peppermints and rules for good behavior. He had been a soldier in the +Revolutionary War,--the greatest distinction we could imagine. And he +was also the sexton of the oldest church in town,--the Old South,--and +had charge of the winding-up of the town clock, and the ringing of the +bell on week-days and Sundays, and the tolling for funerals,--into +which mysteries he sometimes allowed us youngsters a furtive glimpse. I +did not believe that there was another grandfather so delightful as +ours in all the world. + +Uncles, aunts, and cousins were plentiful in the family, but they did +not live near enough for us to see them very often, excepting one aunt, +my father's sister, for whom I was named. She was fair, with large, +clear eyes that seemed to look far into one's heart, with an expression +at once penetrating and benignant. To my childish imagination she was +an embodiment of serene and lofty goodness. I wished and hoped that by +bearing her baptismal name I might become like her; and when I found +out its signification (I learned that "Lucy" means "with light"), I +wished it more earnestly still. For her beautiful character was just +such an illumination to my young life as I should most desire mine to +be to the lives of others. + +My aunt, like my father, was always studying something. Some map or +book always lay open before her, when I went to visit her, in her +picturesque old house, with its sloping roof and tall well-sweep. And +she always brought out some book or picture for me from her quaint +old-fashioned chest of drawers. I still possess the "Children in the +Wood," which she gave me, as a keepsake, when I was about ten years old. + +Our relatives form the natural setting of our childhood. We understand +ourselves best and are best understood by others through the persons +who came nearest to us in our earliest years. Those larger planets held +our little one to its orbit, and lent it their brightness. Happy indeed +is the infancy which is surrounded only by the loving and the good! + +Besides those who were of my kindred, I had several aunts by courtesy, +or rather by the privilege of neighborhood, who seemed to belong to my +babyhood. Indeed, the family hearthstone came near being the scene of a +tragedy to me, through the blind fondness of one of these. + +The adjective is literal. This dear old lady, almost sightless, sitting +in a low chair far in the chimney corner, where she had been placed on +her first call to see the new baby, took me upon her lap, and--so they +say--unconsciously let me slip off into the coals. I was rescued +unsinged, however, and it was one of the earliest accomplishments of my +infancy to thread my poor, half-blind Aunt Stanley's needles for her. +We were close neighbors and gossips until my fourth year. Many an hour +I sat by her side drawing a needle and thread through a bit of calico, +under the delusion that I was sewing, while she repeated all sorts of +juvenile singsongs of which her memory seemed full, for my +entertainment. There used to be a legend current among my brothers and +sisters that this aunt unwittingly taught me to use a reprehensible +word. One of her ditties began with the lines:-- + + "Miss Lucy was a charming child; + She never said, 'I won't.'" + +After bearing this once or twice, the willful negative was continually +upon my lips; doubtless a symptom of what was dormant within--a will +perhaps not quite so aggressive as it was obstinate. But she meant only +to praise me and please me; and dearly I loved to stay with her in her +cozy up-stairs room across the lane, that the sun looked into nearly +all day. + +Another adopted aunt lived down-stairs in the same house. This one was +a sober woman; life meant business to her, and she taught me to sew in +earnest, with a knot in the end of my thread, although it was only upon +clothing for my ragchildren--absurd creatures of my own invention, +limbless and destitute of features, except as now and then one of my +older sisters would, upon my earnest petition, outline a face for one +of them, with pen and ink. I loved them, nevertheless, far better than +I did the London doll that lay in waxen state in an upper drawer at +home,--the fine lady that did not wish to be played with, but only to +be looked at and admired. + +This latter aunt I regarded as a woman of great possessions. She owned +the land beside us and opposite us. Her well was close to our door, a +well of the coldest and clearest water I ever drank, and it abundantly +supplied the whole neighborhood. + +The hill behind her house was our general playground; and I supposed +she owned that, too, since through her dooryard, and over her stone +wall, was our permitted thoroughfare thither. I imagined that those +were her buttercups that we gathered when we got over the wall, and +held under each other's chin, to see, by the reflection, who was fond +of butter; and surely the yellow toadflax (we called it "lady's +slipper") that grew in the rock-crevices was hers, for we found it +nowhere else. + +The blue gill-over-the-ground unmistakably belonged to her, for it +carpeted an unused triangular corner of her garden inclosed by a +leaning fence gray and gold with sea-side lichens. Its blue was +beautiful, but its pungent earthy odor--I can smell it now--repelled us +from the damp corner where it grew. It made us think of graves and +ghosts; and I think we were forbidden to go there. We much preferred to +sit on the sunken curbstones, in the shade of the broad-leaved +burdocks, and shape their spiny balls into chairs and cradles and sofas +for our dollies, or to "play school" on the doorsteps, or to climb over +the wall, and to feel the freedom of the hill. + +We were a neighborhood of large families, and most of us enjoyed the +privilege of "a little wholesome neglect." Our tether was a long one, +and when, grown a little older, we occasionally asked to have it +lengthened, a maternal "I don't care" amounted to almost unlimited +liberty. + +The hill itself was well-nigh boundless in its capacities for juvenile +occupation. Besides its miniature precipices, that walled in some of +the neighbors' gardens, and its slanting slides, worn smooth by the +feet of many childish generations, there were partly quarried ledges, +which had shaped themselves into rock-stairs, carpeted with lovely +mosses, in various patterns. These were the winding ways up our +castle-towers, with breakfast-rooms and boudoirs along the landings, +where we set our tables for expected guests with bits of broken china, +and left our numerous rag-children tucked in asleep under mullein +blankets or plantain-coverlets, while we ascended to the topmost turret +to watch for our ships coming in from sea. + +For leagues of ocean were visible from the tiptop of the ledge, a tiny +cleft peak that held always little rain-pool for thirsty birds that now +and then stopped as they flew over, to dip their beaks and glance shyly +at us, as if they wished to share our games. We could see the steeples +and smokes of Salem in the distance, and the bill, as it descended, +lost itself in mowing fields that slid again into the river. Beyond +that was Rial Side and Folly Hill, and they looked so very far off! + +They called it "over to Green's" across the river. I thought it was +because of the thick growth of dark green junipers, that covered the +cliff-side down to the water's edge; but they were only giving the name +of the farmer who owned the land, Whenever there was an unusual barking +of dogs in the distance, they said it was "over to Green's." That +barking of dogs made the place seem very mysterious to me. + +Our lane ran parallel with the hill and the mowing fields, and down our +lane we were always free to go. It was a genuine lane, all ups and +downs, and too narrow for a street, although at last they have leveled +it and widened it, and made a commonplace thoroughfare of it. I am glad +that my baby life knew it in all its queer, original irregularities, +for it seemed to have a character of its own, like many of its +inhabitants, all the more charming because it was unlike anything but +itself. The hill, too, is lost now, buried under houses. + +Our lane came to an end at some bars that let us into another lane,--or +rather a footpath or cowpath, bordered with cornfields and orchards. We +were still on home ground, for my father's vegetable garden and orchard +were here. After a long straight stretch, the path suddenly took an +abrupt turn, widening into a cart road, then to a tumble-down wharf, +and there was the river! + +An "arm of the sea" I was told that our river was, and it did seem to +reach around the town and hold it in a liquid embrace. Twice a day the +tide came in and filled its muddy bed with a sparkling flood. So it was +a river only half the time, but at high tide it was a river indeed; all +that a child could wish, with its boats and its sloops, and now and +then that most available craft for a crew of children--a gundalow. We +easily transformed the spelling into "gondola," and in fancy were +afloat on Venetian waters, under some overhanging balcony, perhaps at +the very Palace of the Doges,--willingly blind to the reality of a +mudscow leaning against some rickety wharf posts, covered with +barnacles. + +Sometimes a neighbor boy who was the fortunate owner of a boat would +row us down the river a fearful, because a forbidden, joy. The widening +waters made us tremble with dread and longing for what might be beyond; +for when we had passed under the piers of the bridge, the estuary +broadened into the harbor and the open sea. Then somebody on board +would tell a story of children who had drifted away beyond the +harbor-bar and the light-house, and were drowned; and our boyish +helmsman would begin to look grave and anxious, and would turn his boat +and row us back swiftly to the safe gundalow and tumbledown wharf. + +The cars rush into the station now, right over our riverside +playground. I can often hear the mirthful shout of boys and girls under +the shriek of the steam whistle. No dream of a railroad had then come +to the quiet old town, but it was a wild train of children that ran +homeward in the twilight up the narrow lane, with wind-shod feet, and +hair flying like the manes of young colts, and light hearts bounding to +their own footsteps. How good and dear our plain, two-story +dwelling-house looked to us as we came in sight of it, and what sweet +odors stole out to meet us from the white-fenced inclosure of our small +garden,--from peach-trees and lilac-bushes in bloom, from bergamot and +balm and beds of camomile! + +Sometimes we would find the pathetic figure of white-haired Larkin +Moore, the insane preacher, his two canes lain aside, waiting, in our +dooryard for any audience that he could gather: boys and girls were as +welcome as anybody. He would seat us in a row on the green slope, and +give us a half hour or so of incoherent exhortation, to which we +attended respectfully, if not reverently; for his whole manner showed +that, though demented, he was deeply in earnest. He seemed there in the +twilight like a dazed angel who had lost his way, and had half +forgotten his errand, which yet he must try to tell to anybody who +would listen. + +I have heard my mother say that sometimes he would ask if he might take +her baby in his arms and sing to it; and that though she was half +afraid herself, the baby--I like to fancy I was that baby--seemed to +enjoy it, and played gleefully with the old man's flowing gray locks. + +Good Larkin Moore was well known through the two neighboring counties, +Essex and Middlesex. We saw him afterward on the banks of the +Merrimack. He always wore a loose calico tunic over his trousers; and, +when the mood came upon him, he started off with two canes,--seeming to +think he could travel faster as a quadruped than as a biped. He was +entirely harmless; his only wish was to preach or to sing. + +A characteristic anecdote used to be told of him: that once, as a +stage-coach containing, only a few passengers passed him on the road, +he asked the favor of a seat on the top, and was refused. There were +many miles between him and his destination. But he did not upbraid the +ungracious driver; he only swung his two canes a little more briskly, +and kept breast of the horses all the way, entering the town side by +side with the inhospitable vehicles--a running reproach to the churl on +the box. + +There was another wanderer, a blind woman, whom my mother treated with +great respect on her annual pilgrimages. She brought with her some +printed rhymes to sell, purporting to be composed by herself, and +beginning with the verse:-- + + "I, Nancy Welsh, was born and bred + In Essex County, Marblehead. + And when I was an infant quite + The Lord deprived me of my sight." + +I labored under the delusion that blindness was a sort of insanity, and +I used to run away when this pilgrim came, for she was not talkative +like Larkin Moore. I fancied she disliked children, and so I shrank +from her. + +There were other odd estrays going about, who were either well known, +or could account for them selves. The one human phenomenon that filled +us little ones with mortal terror was an unknown "man with a pack on +his back." I do not know what we thought he would do with us, but the +sight of one always sent us breathless with fright to the shelter of +the maternal wing. I did not at all like the picture of Christian on +his way to the wicket-gate, in "Pilgrim's Progress," before I had read +the book, because he had "a pack on his back." But there was really +nothing to be afraid of in those simple, honest old times. I suppose we +children would not have known how happy and safe we were, in our +secluded lane, if we had not conjured up a few imaginary fears. + +Long as it is since the rural features of our lane were entirely +obliterated, my feet often go back and press, in memory, its +grass-grown borders, and in delight and liberty I am a child again. Its +narrow limits were once my whole known world. Even then it seemed to me +as if it might lead everywhere; and it was indeed but the beginning of +a road which must lengthen and widen beneath my feet forever. + + + +II. + +SCHOOLROOM AND MEETING-HOUSE. + +THERE were only two or three houses between ours and the main street, +and then our lane came out directly opposite the finest house in town, +a three-story edifice of brick, painted white, the "Colonel's" +residence. There was a spacious garden behind it, from which we caught +glimpses and perfumes of unknown flowers. Over its high walls hung +boughs of splendid great yellow sweet apples, which, when they fell on +the outside, we children considered as our perquisites. When I first +read about the apples of the Hesperides, my idea of them was that they +were like the Colonel's "pumpkin-sweetings." + +Beyond the garden were wide green fields which reached eastward down to +the beach. It was one of those large old estates which used to give to +the very heart of our New England coast towns a delightful breeziness +and roominess. + +A coach-and-pair was one of the appurtenances of this estate, with a +coachman on the box; and when he took the family out for an airing we +small children thought it was a sort of Cinderella spectacle, prepared +expressly for us. + +It was not, however, quite so interesting as the Boston stage-coach, +that rolled regularly every day past the head of our lane into and out +of its headquarters, a big, unpainted stable close at hand. This +stage-coach, in our minds, meant the city,--twenty miles off; an +immeasurable distance to us then. Even our elders did not go there very +often. + +In those early days, towns used to give each other nicknames, like +schoolboys. Ours was called "Bean-town" not because it was especially +devoted to the cultivation of this leguminous edible, but probably +because it adhered a long time to the Puritanic custom of saving +Sunday-work by baking beans on Saturday evening, leaving them in the +oven over night. After a while, as families left off heating their +ovens, the bean-pots were taken by the village baker on Saturday +afternoon, who returned them to each house early on Sunday morning with +the pan of brown bread that went with them. The jingling of the baker's +bells made the matter a public one. + +The towns through which our stage-coach passed sometimes called it the +"bean-pot." The Jehn who drove it was something of a wag. Once, coming +through Charlestown, while waiting in the street for a resident +passenger, he was hailed by another resident who thought him +obstructing the passage, with the shout,-- + +"Halloo there! Get your old bean-pot out of the way!" + +"I will, when I have got my pork in," was the ready reply. What the +sobriquet of Charlestown was, need not be explained. + +We had a good opportunity to watch both coaches, as my father's shop +was just at the head of the lane, and we went to school upstairs in the +same building. After he left off going to sea,--before my birth,--my +father took a store for the sale of what used to be called "West India +goods," and various other domestic commodities. + +The school was kept by a neighbor whom everybody called "Aunt Hannah." +It took in all the little ones about us, no matter how young they were, +provided they could walk and talk, and were considered capable of +learning their letters. + +A ladder-like flight of stairs on the outside of the house led up to +the schoolroom, and another flight, also outside, took us down into a +bit of a garden, where grew tansy and spearmint and southernwood and +wormwood, and, among other old-fashioned flowers, an abundance of +many-tinted four o'clocks, whose regular afternoon-opening just at the +close of school, was a daily wonder to us babies. From the schoolroom +window we could watch the slow hands of the town clock and get a peep +at what was going on in the street, although there was seldom anybody +in sight except the Colonel's gardener or coachman, going into or out +of the driveway directly opposite. It was a very still street; the +front windows of the houses were generally closed, and a few +military-looking Lombardy poplars stood like sentinels on guard before +them. + +Another shop--a very small one--joined my father's, where three +shoemakers, all of the same name--the name our lane went by--sat at +their benches and plied their "waxed ends." One of them, an elderly +man, tall and erect, used to come out regularly every day, and stand +for a long time at the corner, motionless as a post, with his nose and +chin pointing skyward, usually to the northeast. I watched his face +with wonder, for it was said that "Uncle John" was "weatherwise," and +knew all the secrets of the heavens. + +Aunt Hannah's schoolroom and "our shop" are a blended memory to me. As +I was only a baby when I began to go to school, I was often sent +down-stairs for a half hour's recreation not permitted to the older +ones. I think I looked upon both school and shop entirely as places of +entertainment for little children. + +The front shop-window was especially interesting to us children, for +there were in it a few glass jars containing sticks of striped +barley-candy, and red and white peppermint-drops, and that delectable +achievement of the ancient confectioner's art, the "Salem gibraltar." +One of my first recollections of my father is connected with that +window. He had taken me into the shop with him after dinner,--I was +perhaps two years old,--and I was playing beside him on the counter +when one of his old sea-comrades came in, whom we knew as "Captain +Cross." The Captain tried to make friends with me, and, to seal the +bond, asked my father to take down from its place of exhibition a strip +of red peppermints dropped on white paper, in a style I particularly +admired, which he twisted around my neck, saying, "Now I've bought you! +Now you are my girl. Come, go home with me!" + +His words sounded as if he meant them. I took it all in earnest, and +ran, scared and screaming, to my father, dashing down the sugar-plums I +wanted so much, and refusing even to bestow a glance upon my amused +purchaser. My father pacified me by taking me on his shoulders and +carrying me "pickaback" up and down the shop, and I clung to him in the +happy consciousness that I belonged to him, and that he would not let +anybody else have me; though I did not feel quite easy until Captain +Cross disappeared. I suppose that this little incident has always +remained in my memory because it then for the first time became a fact +in my consciousness that my father really loved me as I loved him. He +was not at all a demonstrative man, and any petting that he gave us +children could not fail to make a permanent impression. + +I think that must have been also the last special attention I received +from him, for a little sister appeared soon after, whose coming was +announced to me with the accompaniment of certain mysterious hints +about my nose being out of joint. I examined that feature carefully in +the looking glass, but could not discover anything usual about it. It +was quite beyond me to imagine that our innocent little baby could have +anything to do with the possible disfigurement of my face, but she did +absorb the fondness of the whole family, myself included, and she +became my father's playmate and darling, the very apple of his eye. I +used sometimes to wish I were a baby too, so that he would notice me, +but gradually I accepted the situation. + +Aunt Hannah used her kitchen or her sitting room for a schoolroom, as +best suited her convenience. We were delighted observers of her +culinary operations and other employments. If a baby's head nodded, a +little bed was made for it on a soft "comforter" in the corner, where +it had its nap out undisturbed. But this did not often happen; there +were so many interesting things going on that we seldom became sleepy. + +Aunt Hannah was very kind and motherly, but she kept us in fear of her +ferule, which indicated to us a possibility of smarting palms. This +ferule was shaped much like the stick with which she stirred her hasty +pudding for dinner,--I thought it was the same,--and I found myself +caught in a whirlwind of family laughter by reporting at home that +"Aunt Hannah punished the scholars with the pudding-stick." + +There was one colored boy in school, who did not sit on a bench, like +the rest, but on a block of wood that looked like a backlog turned +endwise. Aunt Hannah often called him a "blockhead," and I supposed it +was because he sat on that block. Sometimes, in his absence, a boy was +made to sit in his place for punishment, for being a "blockhead" too, +as I imagined. I hoped I should never be put there. Stupid little girls +received a different treatment,--an occasional rap on the head with the +teacher's thimble; accompanied with a half-whispered, impatient +ejaculation, which sounded very much like "Numskull!" I think this was +a rare occurrence, however, for she was a good-natured, much-enduring +woman. + +One of our greatest school pleasures was to watch Aunt Hannah spinning +on her flax-wheel, wetting her thumb and forefinger at her lips to +twist the thread, keeping time, meanwhile, to some quaint old tune with +her foot upon the treadle. + +A verse of one of her hymns, which I never heard anybody else sing, +resounds in the farthest corner of my memory yet:"-- + + "Whither goest thou, pilgrim stranger, + Wandering through this lowly vale? + Knowest thou not 't is full of danger? + And will not thy courage fail?" + +Then a little pause, and the refrain of the answer broke in with a +change, quick and jubilant, the treadle moving more rapidly, also:-- + + "No, I'm bound for the kingdom! + Will you go to glory with me? + Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!" + +I began to go to school when I was about two years old, as other +children about us did. The mothers of those large families had to +resort to some means of keeping their little ones out of mischief, +while they attended to their domestic duties. Not much more than that +sort of temporary guardianship was expected of the good dame who had us +in charge. + +But I learned my letters in a few days, standing at Aunt Hannah's knee +while she pointed them out in the spelling-book with a pin, skipping +over the "a b abs" into words of one and two syllables, thence taking a +flying leap into the New Testament, in which there is concurrent family +testimony that I was reading at the age of two years and a half. +Certain it is that a few passages in the Bible, whenever I read them +now, do not fail to bring before me a vision of Aunt Hannah's somewhat +sternly smiling lips, with her spectacles just above them, far down on +her nose, encouraging me to pronounce the hard words. I think she tried +to choose for me the least difficult verses, or perhaps those of which +she was herself especially fond. Those which I distinctly recall are +the Beatitudes, the Twenty-third Psalm, parts of the first and +fourteenth chapters of the Gospel of St. John, and the thirteenth +chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. + +I liked to say over the "Blesseds,"--the shortest ones best,--about the +meek and the pure in heart; and the two "In the beginnings," both in +Genesis and John. Every child's earliest and proudest Scriptural +conquest in school was, almost as a matter of course, the first verse +in the Bible. + +But the passage which I learned first, and most delighted to repeat +after Aunt Hannah,--I think it must have been her favorite too,--was, +"Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many +mansions." + +The Voice in the Book seemed so tender! Somebody was speaking who had a +heart, and who knew that even a little child's heart was sometimes +troubled. And it was a Voice that called us somewhere; to the Father's +house, with its many mansions, so sunshiny and so large. + +It was a beautiful vision that came to me with the words,--I could see +it best with my eyes shut,-a great, dim Door standing ajar, opening out +of rosy morning mists, overhung with swaying vines and arching boughs +that were full of birds; and from beyond the Door, the ripple of +running waters, and the sound of many happy voices, and above them all +the One Voice that was saying, "I go to prepare a place for you." The +vision gave me a sense of freedom, fearless and infinite. What was +there to be afraid of anywhere? Even we little children could see the +open door of our Father's house. We were playing around its threshold +now, and we need never wander out of sight of it. The feeling was a +vague one, but it was like a remembrance. The spacious mansions were +not far away. They were my home. I had known them, and should return to +them again. + +This dim half-memory, which perhaps comes to all children, I had felt +when younger still, almost before I could walk. Sitting on the floor in +a square of sunshine made by an open window, the leaf-shadows from +great boughs outside dancing and wavering around me, I seemed to be +talking to them and they to me in unknown tongues, that left within me +an ecstasy yet unforgotten. These shadows had brought a message to me +from an unseen Somewhere, which my baby heart was to keep forever. The +wonder of that moment often returns. Shadow-traceries of bough and leaf +still seem to me like the hieroglyphics of a lost language. + +The stars brought me the same feeling. I remember the surprise they +were to me, seen for the first time. One evening, just before I was put +to bed, I was taken in somebody's arms--my sister's, I think--outside +the door, and lifted up under the dark, still, clear sky, splendid with +stars, thicker and nearer earth than they have ever seemed since. All +my little being shaped itself into a subdued delighted "Oh!" And then +the exultant thought flitted through the mind of the reluctant child, +as she was carried in, "Why, that is the roof of the house I live in." +After that I always went to sleep happier for the feeling that the +stars were outside there in the dark, though I could not see them. + +I did firmly believe that I came from some other country to this; I had +a vague notion that we were all here on a journey,--that this was not +the place where we really belonged. Some of the family have told me +that before I could talk plainly, I used to run about humming the +sentence-- + + "My father and mother + Shall come unto the land," + +sometimes varying it with, + + "My brothers and sisters + Shall come unto the land;" + +Nobody knew where I had caught the words, but I chanted them so +constantly that my brother wrote them down, with chalk, on the under +side of a table, where they remained for years. My thought about that +other land may have been only a baby's dream; but the dream was very +real to me. I used to talk, in sober earnest, about what happened +"before I was a little girl, and came here to live"; and it did seem to +me as if I remembered. + + +But I was hearty and robust, full of frolicsome health, and very fond +of the matter-of-fact world I lived in. My sturdy little feet felt the +solid earth beneath them. I grew with the sprouting grass, and enjoyed +my life as the buds and birds seemed to enjoy theirs. It was only as if +the bud and the bird and the dear warm earth knew, in the same dumb way +that I did, that all their joy and sweetness came to them out of the +sky. + +These recollections, that so distinctly belong the baby Myself, before +she could speak her thoughts, though clear and vivid, are difficult to +put into shape. But other grown-up children, in looking back, will +doubtless see many a trailing cloud of glory, that lighted their +unconscious infancy from within and from beyond. + +I was quite as literal as I was visionary in my mental renderings of +the New Testament, read at Aunt Hannah's knee. I was much taken with +the sound of words, without any thought of their meaning--a habit not +always outgrown with childhood. The "sounding brass and tinkling +cymbals," for instance, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, seemed to me +things to be greatly desired. "Charity" was an abstract idea. I did not +know what it meant. But "tinkling cymbals" one could make music with. I +wished I could get hold of them. It never occurred to me that the +Apostle meant to speak of their melody slightingly. + +At meeting, where I began to go also at two years of age, I made my own +private interpretations of the Bible readings. They were absurd enough, +but after getting laughed at a few times at home for making them +public, I escaped mortification by forming a habit of great reserve as +to my Sabbath-day thoughts. + +When the minister read, "Cut it down: why cumbereth it the ground?"? I +thought he meant to say "cu-cumbereth." These vegetables grew on the +ground, and I had heard that they were not very good for people to eat. +I honestly supposed that the New Testament forbade the cultivation of +cucumbers. + +And "Galilee" I understood as a mispronunciation of "gallery." "Going +up into Galilee" I interpreted into clattering up the uncarpeted stairs +in the meeting-house porch, as the boys did, with their squeaking +brogans, looking as restless as imprisoned monkeys after they had got +into those conspicuous seats, where they behaved as if they thought +nobody could see their pranks. I did not think it could be at all nice +to "go up into Galilee." + +I had an "Aunt Nancy," an uncle's wife, to whom I was sometimes sent +for safe-keeping when house-cleaning or anything unusual was going on +at home. She was a large-featured woman, with a very deep masculine +voice, and she conducted family worship herself, kneeling at prayer, +which was not the Orthodox custom. + +She always began by saying,-- + +"Oh Lord, Thou knowest that we are all groveling worms of the dust." I +thought she meant that we all looked like wriggling red earthworms, and +tried to make out the resemblance in my mind, but could not. I +unburdened my difficulty at home, telling the family that "Aunt Nancy +got down on the floor and said we were all grubbelin' worms," begging +to know whether everybody did sometimes have to crawl about in the dust. + +A little later, I was much puzzled as to whether I was a Jew or +Gentile. The Bible seemed to divide people into these two classes only. +The Gentiles were not well spoken of: I did not want to be one of them. +The talked about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the rest, away back to +Adam, as if they were our forefathers (there was a time when I thought +that Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were our four fathers); and yet I +was very sure that I was not a Jew. When I ventured to ask, I was told +that we were all Christians or heathen now. That did not help me for I +thought that only grown-up persons could be Christians, from which it +followed that all children must be heathen. Must I think of Myself as a +heathen, then, until I should be old enough to be a Christian? It was a +shocking conclusion, but I could see no other answer to my question, +and I felt ashamed to ask again. My self-invented theory about the +human race was that Adam and Eve were very tall people, taller than the +tallest trees in the Garden of Eden, before they were sent out of it; +but that they then began to dwindle; that their children had ever since +been getting smaller and smaller, and that by and by the inhabitants of +the world would be no bigger than babies. I was afraid I should stop +growing while I was a child, and I used to stand on the footstool in +the pew, and try to stretch myself up to my mother's height, to imagine +how it would seem to be a woman. I hoped I should be a tall one. I did +not wish to be a diminishing specimen of the race;--an anxiety which +proved to be entirely groundless. + +The Sabbath mornings in those old times had a peculiar charm. They +seemed so much cleaner than other mornings! The roads and the grassy +footpaths seemed fresher, and the air itself purer and more wholesome +than on week-days. Saturday afternoon and evening were regarded as part +of the Sabbath (we were taught that it was heathenish to call the day +Sunday); work and playthings were laid aside, and every body, as well +as every thing, was subjected to a rigid renovation. Sabbath morning +would not have seemed like itself without a clean house, a clean skin, +and tidy and spotless clothing. + +The Saturday's baking was a great event, the brick oven being heated to +receive the flour bread, the flour-and-Indian, and the rye-and-Indian +bread, the traditional pot of beans, the Indian pudding, and the pies; +for no further cooking was to be done until Monday. We smaller girls +thought it a great privilege to be allowed to watch the oven till the +roof of it should be "white-hot," so that the coals could be shoveled +out. + +Then it was so still, both out of doors and within! We were not allowed +to walk anywhere except in the yard or garden. I remember wondering +whether it was never Sabbath-day over the fence, in the next field; +whether the field was not a kind of heathen field, since we could only +go into it on week-days. The wild flowers over there were perhaps +Gentile blossoms. Only the flowers in the garden were well-behaved +Christians. It was Sabbath in the house, and possibly even on the +doorstep; but not much farther. The town itself was so quiet that it +scarcely seemed to breathe. The sound of wheels was seldom heard in the +streets on that day; if we heard it, we expected some unusual +explanation. + +I liked to go to meeting,--not wholly oblivious to the fact that going +there sometimes implied wearing a new bonnet and my best white dress +and muslin "vandyke," of which adornments, if very new, I vainly +supposed the whole congregation to be as admiringly aware as I was +myself. + +But my Sabbath-day enjoyment was not wholly without drawbacks. It was +so hard, sometimes, to stand up through the "long prayer," and to sit +still through the "ninthlies," and "tenthlies," and "finallys" of the +sermon! It was impressed upon me that good children were never restless +in meeting, and never laughed or smiled, however their big brothers +tempted them with winks or grimaces. And I did want to be good. + +I was not tall enough to see very far over the top of the pew. I think +there were only three persons that came within range of my eyes. One +was a dark man with black curly hair brushed down in "bangs" over his +eyebrows, who sat behind a green baize curtain near the outside door, +peeping out at me, as I thought. I had an impression that he was the +"tidy-man," though that personage had become mythical long before my +day. He had a dragonish look, to me; and I tried never to meet his +glance. + +But I did sometimes gaze more earnestly than was polite at a dear, +demure little lady who sat in the corner of the pew next ours, her +downcast eyes shaded by a green calash, and her hidden right hand +gently swaying a long-handled Chinese fan. She was the deacon's wife, +and I felt greatly interested in her movements and in the expression of +her face, because I thought she represented the people they called +"saints," who were, as I supposed, about the same as first cousins to +the angels. + +The third figure in sight was the minister. I did not think he ever +saw me; he was talking to the older people,--usually telling them how +wicked they were. He often said to them that there was not one good +person among them; but I supposed he excepted himself. He seemed to me +so very good that I was very much afraid of him. I was a little afraid +of my father, but then he sometimes played with us children: and +besides, my father was only a man. I thought the minister belonged to +some different order of beings. Up there in the pulpit he seemed to me +so far off--oh! a great deal farther off than God did. His distance +made my reverence for him take the form of idolatry. The pulpit was his +pedestal. If any one had told me that the minister ever did or thought +anything that was wrong, I should have felt as if the foundations of +the earth under me were shaken. I wondered if he ever did laugh. +Perhaps it was wicked for a minister even to smile. + +One day, when I was very little, I met the minister in the street; and +he, probably recognizing me as the child of one of his parishioners, +actually bowed to me! His bows were always ministerially profound, and +I was so overwhelmed with surprise and awe that I forgot to make the +proper response of a "curtsey," but ran home as fast as I could go to +proclaim the wonder. It would not have astonished me any more, if one +of the tall Lombardy poplars that stood along the sidewalk had laid +itself down at my feet. + +I do not remember anything that the preacher ever said, except some +words which I thought sounded well,--such as "dispensations," +"decrees," "ordinances," "covenants,"--although I attached no meaning +to them. He seemed to be trying to explain the Bible by putting it into +long words. I did not understand them at all. It was from Aunt Hannah +that I received my first real glimpses of the beautiful New Testament +revelation. In her unconscious wisdom she chose for me passages and +chapters that were like openings into heaven. They contained the great, +deep truths which are simple because they are great. It was not +explanations of those grand words that I required, or that anybody +requires. In reading them we are all children together, and need only +to be led to the banks of the river of God, which is full of water, +that we may look down into its pellucid depths for ourselves. + +Our minister was not unlike other ministers of the time, and his +seeming distance from his congregation was doubtless owing to the deep +reverence in which the ministerial office was universally held among +our predecessors. My own graven-image worship of him was only a +childish exaggeration of the general feeling of grown people around me. +He seemed to us an inhabitant of a Sabbath-day sphere, while we +belonged to the every-day world. I distinctly remember the day of my +christening, when I was between three and four years old. My parents +did not make a public profession of their faith until after the birth +of all their children, eight of whom--I being my father's ninth child +and seventh daughter--were baptized at one time. My two half-sisters +were then grown-up young women. My mother had told us that the minister +would be speaking directly to us, and that we must pay close attention +to what he said. I felt that it was an important event, and I wished to +do exactly what the minister desired of me. I listened eagerly while he +read the chapter and the hymn. The latter was one of my favorites:-- + + "See Israel's gentle Shepherd stands;" + +and the chapter was the third of St. Matthew, containing the story of +our Lord's baptism. I could not make out any special message for us, +until he came to the words, "Whose fan is in his hand." + +That must be it! I looked anxiously at my sisters, to see if they had +brought their fans. It was warm weather, and I had taken a little one +of my own to meeting. Believing that I was following a direct +instruction, I clasped my fan to my bosom and held it there as we +walked up the aisle, and during the ceremony, wondering why the others +did not do so, too. The baby in my mother's arms--Octavia, the eighth +daughter--shocked me by crying a little, but I tried to behave the +better on that account. + +It all seemed very solemn and mysterious to me. I knew from my father's +and mother's absorbed manner then, and when we returned from church, +that it was something exceedingly important to Them--something that +they wished us neither to talk about nor to forget. + +I never did forget it. There remained within me a sweet, haunting +feeling of having come near the "gentle Shepherd" of the hymn, who was +calling the lambs to his side. The chapter had ended with the echo of +a voice from heaven, and with the glimpse of a descending Dove. And the +water-drops on my forehead, were they not from that "pure river of +water of life, clear as crystal," that made music through those lovely +verses in the last chapter of the good Book? + +I am glad that I have always remembered that day of family +consecration. As I look back, it seems as if the horizons of heaven and +earth met and were blended then. And who can tell whether the fragrance +of that day's atmosphere may not enter into the freshness of some new +childhood in the life which is to come? + + + +III. + +THE HYMN-BOOK. + +ALMOST the first decided taste in my life was the love of hymns. +Committing them to memory was as natural to me as breathing. I followed +my mother about with the hymn-book ("Watts' and Select"), reading or +repeating them to her, while she was busy with her baking or ironing, +and she was always a willing listener. She was fond of devotional +reading, but had little time for it, and it pleased her to know that so +small a child as I really cared for the hymns she loved. + +I learned most of them at meeting. I was told to listen to the +minister; but as I did not understand a word he was saying, I gave it +up, and took refuge in the hymn-book, with the conscientious purpose of +trying to sit still. I turned the leaves over as noiselessly as +possible, to avoid the dreaded reproof of my mother's keen blue eyes; +and sometimes I learned two or three hymns in a forenoon or an +afternoon. Finding it so easy, I thought I would begin at the +beginning, and learn the whole. There were about a thousand of them +included in the Psalms, the First, Second, and Third Books, and the +Select Hymns. But I had learned to read before I had any knowledge of +counting up numbers, and so was blissfully ignorant of the magnitude of +my undertaking. I did not, I think, change my resolution because there +were so many, but because, little as I was, I discovered that there +were hymns and hymns. Some of them were so prosy that the words would +not stay in my memory at all, so I concluded that I would learn only +those I liked. + +I had various reasons for my preferences. With some, I was caught by a +melodious echo, or a sonorous ring; with others by the hint of a +picture, or a story, or by some sacred suggestion that attracted me, I +knew not why. Of some I was fond just because I misunderstood them; and +of these I made a free version in my mind, as I murmured them over. One +of my first favorites was certainly rather a singular choice for a +child of three or four years. I had no idea of its meaning, but made up +a little story out of it, with myself as the heroine. It began with the +words-- + + "Come, humble sinner, in whose breast + A thousand thoughts revolve." + +The second stanza read thus:-- + + "I'll go to Jesus, though my sin + Hath like a mountain rose." + +I did not know that this last line was bad grammar, but thought that +the sin in question was something pretty, that looked "like a mountain +rose." Mountains I had never seen; they were a glorious dream to me. +And a rose that grew on a mountain must surely be prettier than any of +our red wild roses on the hill, sweet as they were. I would pluck that +rose, and carry it up the mountain-side into the temple where the King +sat, and would give it to Him; and then He would touch me with his +sceptre, and let me through into a garden full of flowers. There was no +garden in the hymn; I suppose the "rose" made me invent one. But it did +read-- + + "I know his courts; I'll enter in, + Whatever may oppose;" + +and so I fancied there would be lions in the way, as there were in the +Pilgrim's, at the "House Beautiful"; but I should not be afraid of +them; they would no doubt be chained. The last verse began with the +lines,-- + + "I can but perish if I go: + I am resolved to try:" + +and my heart beat a brave echo to the words, as I started off in fancy +on a "Pilgrim's Progress" of my own, a happy little dreamer, telling +nobody the secret of my imaginary journey, taken in sermon-time. + +Usually, the hymns for which I cared most suggested Nature in some +way,--flowers, trees, skies, and stars. When I repeated,-- + + "There everlasting spring abides, + And never-withering flowers,"-- + +I thought of the faintly flushed anemones and white and blue violets, +the dear little short-lived children of our shivering spring. They also +would surely be found in that heavenly land, blooming on through the +cloudless, endless year. And I seemed to smell the spiciness of bay +berry and sweet-fern and wild roses and meadow-sweet that grew in +fragrant jungles up and down the hillside back of the meeting-house, in +another verse which I dearly loved:-- + + "The hill of Zion yields + A thousand sacred sweet, + Before we reach the heavenly fields, + Or walk the golden streets." + +We were allowed to take a little nosegay to meeting sometimes: a pink +or two (pinks were pink then, not red, nor white, nor even double) and +a sprig of camomile; and their blended perfume still seems to be a part +of the June Sabbath mornings long passed away. + + When the choir sang of + "Seas of heavenly rest," + +a breath of salt wind came in with the words through the open door, +from the sheltered waters of the bay, so softly blue and so lovely, I +always wondered how a world could be beautiful where "there was no more +sea." I concluded that the hymn and the text could not really +contradict other; that there must be something like the sea in heaven, +after all. One stanza that I used to croon over, gave me the feeling of +being rocked in a boat on a strange and beautiful ocean, from whose +far-off shores the sunrise beckoned:-- + + "At anchor laid, remote from home, + Toiling I cry, Sweet Spirit, come! + Celestial breeze, no longer stay! + But spread my sails, and speed my way!" + +Some of the chosen hymns of my infancy the world recognizes among its +noblest treasures of sacred song. That one of Doddridge's, beginning +with + + "Ye golden lamps of heaven, farewell!" + +made me feel as if I had just been gazing in at some window of the +"many mansions" above:-- + + "Ye stars are but the shining dust + Of my divine abode-" + +Had I not known that, ever since I was a baby? But the light does not +stream down even into a baby's soul with equal brightness all the time. +Earth draws her dark curtains too soon over the windows of heaven, and +the little children fall asleep in her dim rooms, and forget their +visions. + +That majestic hymn of Cowper's,-- + + "God moves in a mysterious way," + +was one of my first and dearest. It reminded me of the rolling of +thunder through the sky; and, understood as little as the thunder +itself, which my mother told me was God's voice, so that I bent my ear +and listened, expecting to hear it shaped into words, it still did give +me an idea of the presence of One Infinite Being, that thrilled me with +reverent awe. And this was one of the best lessons taught in the +Puritan school,--the lesson of reverence, the certainty that life meant +looking up to something, to Some One greater than ourselves, to a Life +far above us, which yet enfolded ours. + +The thought of God, when He was first spoken of to me, seemed as +natural as the thought of my father and mother. That He should be +invisible did not seem strange, for I could not with my eyes see +through the sky, beyond which I supposed he lived. But it was easy to +believe that He could look down and see me, and that He knew all about +me. We were taught very early to say "Thou, God, seest me"; and it was +one of my favorite texts. Heaven seemed nearer, because somebody I +loved was up there looking at me. A baby is not afraid of its father's +eyes. + +The first real unhappiness I remember to have felt was when some one +told me, one day, that I did not love God. I insisted, almost +tearfully, that I did; but I was told that if I did truly love Him I +should always be good. I knew I was not that, and the feeling of sudden +orphanage came over me like a bewildering cloud. Yet I was sure that I +loved my father and mother, even when I was naughty, Was He harder to +please than they? + +Then I heard of a dreadful dark Somewhere, the horror of which was that +it was away from Him. What if I should wake some morning, and find +myself there? Sometimes I did not dare to go to sleep for that dread. +And the thought was too awful to speak of to anybody. Baby that I was, +I shut my lips in a sort of reckless despair, and thought that if I +could not be good, I might as well be naughty, and enjoy it. But +somehow I could not enjoy it. I felt sorry and ashamed and degraded +whenever I knew that I had been cross or selfish. + +I heard them talk about Jesus as if He were a dead man, one who died a +great while ago, whose death made a great difference to us, I could not +understand how. It seemed like a lovely story, the loveliest in the +world, but it sounded as if it were only a story, even to those who +repeated it to me; something that had happened far away in the past. + +But one day a strange minister came into the Sabbath-school in our +little chapel, and spoke to us children about Him, oh! so differently! + +"Children," he said, "Jesus is not dead. He is alive: He loves you, and +wants you to love Him! He is your best Friend, and He will show you how +to be good." + +My heart beat fast. I could hardly keep back the tears. The New +Testament, then, did really mean what it said! Jesus said He would come +back again, and would always be with those who loved Him. + +"He is alive! He loves me! He will tell me how to be good!" I said it +over to myself, but not to anybody else. I was sure that I loved Him. +It was like a beautiful secret between us two. I felt Him so alive and +so near! He wanted me to be good, and I could be, I would be, for his +sake. + +That stranger never knew how his loving word had touched a child's +heart. The doors of the Father's house were opened wide again, by the +only hand that holds the key. The world was all bright and fresh once +more. It was as if the May sun had suddenly wakened the flowers in an +overshadowed wayside nook. + +I tried long afterward, thinking that it was my duty, to build up a +wall of difficult doctrines over my spring blossoms, as if they needed +protection. But the sweet light was never wholly stifled out, though I +did not always keep my face turned towards it: and I know now, that +just to let his lifegiving smile shine into the soul is better than any +of the theories we can invent about Him; and that only so can young or +old receive the kingdom of God as a little child. + +I believe that one great reason for a child's love of hymns, such as +mine was, is that they are either addressed to a Person, to the Divine +Person,--or they bring Him before the mind in some distinct way, +instead of being written upon a subject, like a sermon. To make Him +real is the only way to make our own spirits real to ourselves. + +I think more gratefully now of the verses I learned from the Bible and +the Hymn-Book than of almost anything that came to me in that time of +beginnings. The whole Hymn-Book was not for me then, any more than the +whole Bible. I took from both only what really belonged to me. To be +among those who found in the true sources of faith and adoration, was +like breathing in my native air, though I could not tell anything about +the land from which I had come. Much that was put in the way of us +children to climb by, we could only stumble over; but around and above +the roughnesses of the road, the pure atmosphere of worship was felt +everywhere, the healthiest atmosphere for a child's soul to breathe in. + +I had learned a great many hymns before the family took any notice of +it. When it came to the knowledge of my most motherly sister Emilie,--I +like to call her that, for she was as fond of early rising as Chaucer's +heroine:-- + + "Up rose the sun, and up rose Emilie;" + +and it is her own name, with a very slight change,--she undertook to +see how many my small memory would contain. She promised me a new book, +when I should have learned fifty; and that when I could repeat any one +of a hundred hymns, she would teach me to write. I earned the book when +I was about four years old. I think it was a collection of some of Jane +Taylor's verses. "For Infant Minds," was part of the title. I did not +care for it, however, nearly so much as I did for the old, thumb-worn +"Watts' and Select Hymns." Before I was five I bad gone beyond the +stipulated hundred. + +A proud and happy child I was, when I was permitted to dip a goose +quill into an inkstand, and make written letters, instead of printing +them with a pencil on a slate. + +My sister prepared a neat little writing-book for me, and told me not +to make a mark in it except when she was near to tell me what to do. In +my self-sufficient impatience to get out of "pothooks and trammels" +into real letters and words I disobeyed her injunction, and disfigured +the pages with numerous tell-tale blots. Then I hid the book away under +the garret eaves, and refused to bring it to light again. I was not +allowed to resume my studies in penmanship for some months, in +consequence. But when I did learn to write, Emilie was my teacher, and +she made me take great pains with my p's and q's. + +It is always a mistake to cram a juvenile mind. A precocious child is +certainly as far as possible from being an interesting one. Children +ought to be children, and nothing else. But I am not sorry that I +learned to read when so young, because there were years of my childhood +that came after, when I had very little time for reading anything. + +To learn hymns was not only a pastime, but a pleasure which it would +have been almost cruel to deprive me of. It did not seem to me as if I +learned them, but as if they just gave themselves to me while I read +them over; as if they, and the unseen things they sang about, became a +part of me. + +Some of the old hymns did seem to lend us wings, so full were they of +aspiration and hope and courage. To a little child, reading them or +hearing them sung was like being caught up in a strong man's arms, to +gaze upon some wonderful landscape. These climbing and flying +hymns,--how well I remember them, although they were among the first I +learned! They are of the kind that can never wear out. We all know them +by their first lines,-- + + "Awake, our souls! away, our fears!" + + "Up to the hills I lift mine eyes." + + "There is a land of pure delight." + + "Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, + Thy better portion trace!" + +How the meeting-house rafters used to ring to that last hymn, sung to +the tune of "Amsterdam!" Sometimes it seemed as if the very roof was +lifted off,--nay, the roof of the sky itself--as if the music had burst +an entrance for our souls into the heaven of heavens. + +I loved to learn the glad hymns, and there were scores of them. They +come flocking back through the years, like birds that are full of the +music of an immortal spring! + + "Come, let us join our cheerful songs + With angels round the throne." + + "Love divine, all love excelling; + Joy of heaven, to earth come down." + + "Joy to the world! the Lord is come!" + + "Hark! the song of jubilee, + Loud as mighty thunders' roar, + Or the fullness of the sea + When it breaks upon the shore! + + "Hallelujah! for the Lord + God Omnipotent shall reign! + Hallelujah! let the word + Echo round the earth and main." + +Ah, that word "Hallelujah!" It seemed to express all the joy of spring +mornings and clear sunshine and bursting blossoms, blended with all +that I guessed of the songs of angels, and with all that I had heard +and believed, in my fledgling soul, of the glorious One who was born in +a manger and died on a cross, that He might reign in human hearts as a +king. I wondered why the people did not sing "Hallelujah" more. It +seemed like a word sent straight down to us out of heaven. + +I did not like to learn the sorrowful hymns, though I did it when they +were given to me as a task, such as-- + + "Hark, from the tombs," and + + "Lord, what a wretched land is this, + That yields us no supply." + +I suppose that these mournful strains had their place, but sometimes +the transition was too sudden, from the outside of the meeting-house to +the inside; from the sunshine and bobolinks and buttercups of the merry +May-day world, to the sad strains that chanted of "this barren land," +this "vale of tears," this "wilderness" of distress and woe. It let us +light-hearted children too quickly down from the higher key of mirth to +which our careless thoughts were pitched. We knew that we were happy, +and sorrow to us was unreal. But somehow we did often get the +impression that it was our duty to try to be sorrowful; and that we +could not be entirely good, without being rather miserable. + +And I am afraid that in my critical little mind I looked upon it as an +affectation on the part of the older people to speak of life in this +doleful way. I thought that they really knew better. It seemed to me +that it must be delightful to grow up, and learn things, and do things, +and be very good indeed,--better than children could possibly know how +to be. I knew afterwards that my elders were sometimes, at least, +sincere in their sadness; for with many of them life must have been a +hard struggle. But when they shook their heads and said,--"Child, you +will not be so happy by and by; you are seeing your best days now," I +still doubted. I was born with the blessing of a cheerful temperament; +and while that is not enough to sustain any of us through the +inevitable sorrows that all must share, it would have been most +unnatural and ungrateful in me to think of earth as a dismal place, +when everything without and within was trying to tell me that this good +and beautiful world belongs to God. + +I took exception to some verses in many of the hymns that I loved the +most. I had my own mental reservations with regard even to that +glorious chant of the ages,-- + + "Jerusalem, my happy home, + Name ever dear to me." + +I always wanted to skip one half of the third stanza, as it stood in +our Hymn-Book: + + "Where congregations ne'er break up, + And Sabbaths have no end." + +I did not want it to be Sabbath-day always. I was conscious of a +pleasure in the thought of games and frolics and coming week-day +delights that would flit across my mind even when I was studying my +hymns, or trying to listen to the minister. And I did want the +congregation to break up some time. Indeed, in those bright spring +days, the last hymn in the afternoon always sounded best, because with +it came the opening of doors into the outside air, and the pouring in +of a mingled scent of sea winds and apple blossoms, like an invitation +out into the freedom of the beach, the hillsides, the fields and +gardens and orchards. In all this I felt as if I were very wicked. I +was afraid that I loved earth better than I did heaven. + +Nevertheless I always did welcome that last hymn, announced to be sung +"with the Doxology," usually in "long metre," to the tune of "Old +Hundred." There were certain mysterious preliminaries,--the rustling of +singing-book leaves, the sliding of the short screen-curtains before +the singers along by their clinking rings, and now and then a +premonitory groan or squeak from bass-viol or violin, as if the +instruments were clearing their throats; and finally the sudden +uprising of that long row of heads in the "singing-seats." + +My tallest and prettiest grown-up sister, Louise, stood there among +them, and of all those girlish, blooming faces I thought hers the very +handsomest. But she did not open her lips wide enough to satisfy me. I +could not see that she was singing at all. + +To stand up there and be one of the choir, seemed to me very little +short of promotion to the ranks of cherubim and seraphim. I quite +envied that tall, pretty sister of mine. I was sure that I should open +my mouth wide, if I could only be in her place. Alas! the years proved +that, much as I loved the hymns, there was no music in me to give them +voice, except to very indulgent ears. + +Some of us must wait for the best human gifts until we come to heavenly +places. Our natural desire for musical utterance is perhaps a prophecy +that in a perfect world we shall all know how to sing. But it is +something to feel music, if we cannot make it. That, in itself, is a +kind of unconscious singing. + +As I think back to my childhood, it seems to me as if the air was full +of hymns, as it was of the fragrance of clover-blossoms, and the songs +of bluebirds and robins, and the deep undertone of the sea. And the +purity, the calmness, and the coolness of the dear old Sabbath days +seems lingering yet in the words of those familiar hymns, whenever I +bear them sung. Their melody penetrates deep into my life, assuming me +that I have not left the green pastures and the still waters of my +childhood very far behind me. + +There is something at the heart of a true song or hymn which keeps the +heart young that listens. It is like a breeze from the eternal hills; +like the west wind of spring, never by a breath less balmy and clear +for having poured life into the old generations of earth for thousands +of years; a spiritual freshness, which has nothing to do with time or +decay. + + + +IV. + +NAUGHTY CHILDREN AND FAIRY TALES. + +ALTHOUGH the children of an earlier time heard a great deal of +theological discussion which meant little or nothing to them, there was +one thing that was made clear and emphatic in all the Puritan training: +that the heavens and earth stood upon firm foundations--upon the Moral +Law as taught in the Old Testament and confirmed by the New. Whatever +else we did not understand, we believed that to disobey our parents, to +lie or steal, had been forbidden by a Voice which was not to be +gainsaid. People who broke or evaded these commands did so willfully, +and without excusing themselves, or being excused by others. I think +most of us expected the fate of Ananias and Sapphira, if we told what +we knew was a falsehood. + +There were reckless exceptions, however. A playmate, of whom I was +quite fond, was once asked, in my presence, whether she had done +something forbidden, which I knew she had been about only a little +while before. She answered "No," and without any apparent hesitation. +After the person who made the inquiry had gone, I exclaimed, with +horrified wonder, "How could you?" + +Her reply was, "Oh, I only kind of said no." What a real lie was to +her, if she understood a distinct denial of the truth as only "kind-of" +lying, it perplexed me to imagine. The years proved that this lack of +moral perception was characteristic, and nearly spoiled a nature full +of beautiful gifts. + +I could not deliberately lie, but I had my own temptations, which I did +not always successfully resist. I remember the very spot--in a footpath +through a green field--where I first met the Eighth Commandment, and +felt it looking me full in the face. + +I suppose I was five or six years old. I had begun to be trusted with +errands; one of them was to go to a farmhouse for a quart of milk every +morning, to purchase which I went always to the money-drawer in the +shop and took out four cents. We were allowed to take a "small brown" +biscuit, or a date, or a fig, or a "gibraltar," sometimes; but we well +understood that we could not help ourselves to money. + +Now there was a little painted sugar equestrian in a shop-window down +town, which I had seen and set my heart upon. I had learned that its +price was two cents; and one morning as I passed around the counter +with my tin pail I made up my mind to possess myself of that amount. My +father's back was turned; he was busy at his desk with account-books +and ledgers. I counted out four cents aloud, but took six, and started +on my errand with a fascinating picture before me of that pink and +green horseback rider as my very own. + +I cannot imagine what I meant to do with him. I knew that his paint was +poisonous, and I could not have intended to eat him; there were much +better candies in my father's window; he would not sell these dangerous +painted toys to children. But the little man was pretty to look at, and +I wanted him, and meant to have him. It was just a child's first +temptation to get possession of what was not her own,--the same ugly +temptation that produces the defaulter, the burglar, and the highway +robber, and that made it necessary to declare to every human being the +law, "Thou shalt not covet." + +As I left the shop, I was conscious of a certain pleasure in the +success of my attempt, as any thief might be; and I walked off very +fast, clattering the coppers in the tin pail. + +When I was fairly through the bars that led into the farmer's field, +and nobody was in sight, I took out my purloined pennies, and looked at +them as they lay in my palm. + +Then a strange thing happened. It was a bright morning, but it seemed +to me as if the sky grew suddenly dark; and those two pennies began to +burn through my hand, to scorch me, as if they were red hot, to my very +soul. It was agony to hold them. I laid them down under a tuft of grass +in the footpath, and ran as if I had left a demon behind me. I did my +errand, and returning, I looked about in the grass for the two cents, +wondering whether they could make me feel so badly again. But my good +angel hid them from me; I never found them. + +I was too much of a coward to confess my fault to my father; I had +already begun to think of him as "an austere man," like him in the +parable of the talents. I should have been a much happier child if I +bad confessed, for I had to carry about with me for weeks and months a +heavy burden of shame. I thought of myself as a thief, and used to +dream of being carried off to jail and condemned to the gallows for my +offense: one of my story-books told about a boy who was hanged at +Tyburn for stealing, and how was I better than he? + +Whatever naughtiness I was guilty of afterwards, I never again wanted +to take what belonged to another, whether in the family or out of it. I +hated the sight of the little sugar horseback rider from that day, and +was thankful enough when some other child had bought him and left his +place in the window vacant. + +About this time I used to lie awake nights a good deal, wondering what +became of infants who were wicked. I had heard it said that all who +died in infancy went to heaven, but it was also said that those who +sinned could not possibly go to heaven. I understood, from talks I had +listened to among older people, that infancy lasted until children were +about twelve years of age. Yet here was I, an infant of less than six +years, who had committed a sin. I did not know what to do with my own +case. I doubted whether it would do any good for me to pray to be +forgiven, but I did pray, because I could not help it, though not +aloud. I believe I preferred thinking my prayers to saying them, almost +always. + +Inwardly, I objected to the idea of being an infant; it seemed to me +like being nothing in particular--neither a child nor a little girl, +neither a baby nor a woman. Having discovered that I was capable of +being wicked, I thought it would be better if I could grow up at once, +and assume my own responsibilities. It quite demoralized me when people +talked in my presence about "innocent little children." + +There was much questioning in those days as to whether fictitious +reading was good for children. To "tell a story" was one equivalent +expression for lying. But those who came nearest to my child-life +recognized the value of truth as impressed through the imagination, and +left me in delightful freedom among my fairy-tale books. I think I saw +a difference, from the first, between the old poetic legends and a +modern lie, especially if this latter was the invention of a fancy as +youthful as my own. + +I supposed that the beings of those imaginative tales had lived some +time, somewhere; perhaps they still existed in foreign countries, which +were all a realm of fancy to me. I was certain that they could not +inhabit our matter-of-fact neighborhood. I had never heard that any +fairies or elves came over with the Pilgrims in the Mayflower. But a +little red-haired playmate with whom I became intimate used to take me +off with her into the fields, where, sitting, on the edge of a disused +cartway fringed with pussy-clover, she poured into my ears the most +remarkable narratives of acquaintances she had made with people who +lived under the ground close by us, in my father's orchard. Her literal +descriptions quite deceived me; I swallowed her stories entire, just as +people in the last century did Defoe's account of "The Apparition of +Mrs. Veal." + +She said that these subterranean people kept house, and that they +invited her down to play with their children on Wednesday and Saturday +afternoons; also that they sometimes left a plate of cakes and tarts +for her at their door: she offered to show me the very spot where it +was,--under a great apple-tree which my brothers called "the +luncheon-tree," because we used to rest and refresh ourselves there, +when we helped my father weed his vegetable-garden. But she guarded +herself by informing me that it would be impossible for us to open the +door ourselves; that it could only be unfastened from the inside. She +told me these people's names--a "Mr. Pelican," and a "Mr. Apple-tree +Manasseh," who had a very large family of little "Manassehs." She said +that there was a still larger family, some of them probably living just +under the spot where we sat, whose surname was "Hokes." (If either of +us had been familiar with another word pronounced in the same way, +though spelled differently, I should since have thought that she was +all the time laughing in her sleeve at my easy belief.) These "Hokeses" +were not good-natured people, she added, whispering to me that we must +not speak about them aloud, as they had sharp ears, and might overhear +us, and do us mischief. + +I think she was hoaxing herself as well as me; it was her way of being +a heroine in her own eyes and mine, and she had always the manner of +being entirely in earnest. + +But she became more and more romantic in her inventions. A distant +aristocratic-looking mansion, which we could see half-hidden by trees, +across the river, she assured me was a haunted house, and that she had +passed many a night there, seeing unaccountable sights, and hearing +mysterious sounds. She further announced that she was to be married, +some time, to a young man who lived over there. I inferred that the +marriage was to take place whenever the ghostly tenants of the house +would give their consent. She revealed to me, under promise of strict +secrecy, the young man's name. It was "Alonzo." + +Not long after I picked up a book which one of my sisters had borrowed, +called "Alonzo and Melissa," and I discovered that she had been telling +me page after page of "Melissa's" adventures, as if they were her own. +The fading memory I have of the book is that it was a very silly one; +and when I discovered that the rest of the romantic occurrences she had +related, not in that volume, were to be found in "The Children of the +Abbey," I left off listening to her. I do not think I regarded her +stories as lies; I only lost my interest in them after I knew that they +were all of her own clumsy second-hand making-up, out of the most +commonplace material. + +My two brothers liked to play upon my credulity. When my brother Ben +pointed up to the gilded weather-cock on the Old South steeple, and +said to me with a very grave face,-- + +"Did you know that whenever that cock crows every rooster in town crows +too?" I listened out at the window, and asked,-- + +"But when will he begin to crow?" + +"Oh, roosters crow in the night, sometimes, when you are asleep." + +Then my younger brother would break in with a shout of delight at my +stupidity:-- + +"I'll tell you when, goosie!-- + + 'The next day after never; + When the dead ducks fly over the river.'" + +But this must have been when I was very small; for I remember thinking +that "the next day after never" would come some time, in millions of +years, perhaps. And how queer it would be to see dead ducks flying +through the air! + +Witches were seldom spoken of in the presence of us children. We +sometimes overheard a snatch of a witch-story, told in whispers, by the +flickering firelight, just as we were being sent off to bed. But, to +the older people, those legends were too much like realities, and they +preferred not to repeat them. Indeed, it was over our town that the +last black shadow of the dreadful witchcraft delusion had rested. +Mistress Hale's house was just across the burying-ground, and Gallows +Hill was only two miles away, beyond the bridge. Yet I never really +knew what the "Salem Witchcraft" was until Goodrich's "History of the +United States" was put into my hands as a schoolbook, and I read about +it there. + +Elves and gnomes and air-sprites and genii were no strangers to us, for +my sister Emilie--she who heard me say my hymns, and taught me to +write--was mistress of an almost limitless fund of imaginative lore. +She was a very Scheherezade of story-tellers, so her younger sisters +thought, who listened to her while twilight grew into moonlight, +evening after evening, with fascinated wakefulness. + +Besides the tales that the child-world of all ages is familiar +with,--Red Riding-Hood, the Giant-Killer, Cinderella, Aladdin, the +"Sleeping Beauty," and the rest,--she had picked up somewhere most of +the folk-stories of Ireland and Scotland, and also the wild legends of +Germany, which latter were not then made into the compact volumes known +among juvenile readers of to-day as Grimm's "Household Tales." + +Her choice was usually judicious; she omitted the ghosts and goblins +that would have haunted our dreams; although I was now and then visited +by a nightmare-consciousness of being a bewitched princess who must +perform some impossible task, such as turning a whole roomful of straws +into gold, one by one, or else lose my head. But she blended the +humorous with the romantic in her selections, so that we usually +dropped to sleep in good spirits, if not with a laugh. + +That old story of the fisherman who had done the "Man of the Sea" a +favor, and was to be rewarded by having his wish granted, she told in +so quaintly realistic a way that I thought it might all have happened +on one of the islands out in Massachusetts Bay. The fisherman was +foolish enough, it seemed, to let his wife do all his wishing for him; +and she, unsatisfied still, though she had been made first an immensely +rich woman, and then a great queen, at last sent her husband to ask +that they two might be made rulers over the sun, moon, and stars. + +As my sister went on with the story, I could see the waves grow black, +and could hear the wind mutter and growl, while the fisherman called +for the first, second, and then reluctantly, for the third time:-- + + "O Man of the Sea, + Come listen to me! + For Alice my wife, + The plague of my life, + Has sent me to beg a boon of thee!" + +As his call died away on the sullen wind, the mysterious "Man of the +Sea" rose in his wrath out of the billows, and said,-- + +"Go back to your old mud hut, and stay there with your wife Alice, and +never come to trouble me again." + +I sympathized with the "Man of the Sea" in his righteous indignation at +the conduct of the greedy, grasping woman; and the moral of the story +remained with me, as the story itself did. I think I understood dimly, +even then, that mean avarice and self-seeking ambition always find +their true level in muddy earth, never among the stars. + +So it proved that my dear mother-sister was preparing me for life when +she did not know it, when she thought she was only amusing me. + +This sister, though only just entering her teens, was toughening +herself by all sorts of unnecessary hardships for whatever might await +her womanhood. She used frequently to sleep in the garret on a hard +wooden sea-chest instead of in a bed. And she would get up before +daylight and run over into the burying-ground, barefooted and +white-robed (we lived for two or three years in another house than our +own, where the oldest graveyard in town was only separated from us by +our garden fence), "to see if there were any ghosts there," she told +us. Returning noiselessly,--herself a smiling phantom, with long, +golden-brown hair rippling over her shoulders,--she would drop a trophy +upon her little sisters' pillow, in the shape of a big, yellow apple +that had dropped from "the Colonel's" "pumpkin sweeting" tree into the +graveyard, close to our fence. + +She was fond of giving me surprises, of watching my wonder at seeing +anything beautiful or strange for the first time. Once, when I was very +little, she made me supremely happy by rousing me before four o'clock +in the morning, dressing me hurriedly, and taking me out with her for a +walk across the graveyard and through the dewy fields. The birds were +singing, and the sun was just rising, and we were walking toward the +east, hand in hand, when suddenly there appeared before us what looked +to me like an immense blue wall, stretching right and left as far as I +could see. + +"Oh, what is it the wall of?" I cried. + +It was a revelation she had meant for me. "So you did not know it was +the sea, little girl!" she said. + +It was a wonderful illusion to My unaccustomed eyes, and I took in at +that moment for the first time something of the real grandeur of the +ocean. Not a sail was in sight, and the blue expanse was scarcely +disturbed by a ripple, for it was the high-tide calm. That morning's +freshness, that vision of the sea, I know I can never lose. + +From our garret window--and the garret was my usual retreat when I +wanted to get away by myself with my books or my dreams--we had the +distant horizon-line of the bay, across a quarter of a mile of trees +and mowing fields. We could see the white breakers dashing against the +long narrow island just outside of the harbor, which I, with my +childish misconstruction of names, called "Breakers' Island"; supposing +that the grown people had made a mistake when they spoke of it as +"Baker's." But that far-off, shining band of silver and blue seemed so +different from the whole great sea, stretching out as if into eternity +from the feet of the baby on the shore! + +The marvel was not lessened when I began to study geography, and +comprehended that the world is round. Could it really be that we had +that endless "Atlantic Ocean" to look at from our window, to dance +along the edge of, to wade into or bathe in, if we chose? The map of +the world became more interesting to me than any of the story-books. In +my fanciful explorations I out-traveled Captain Cook, the only voyager +around the world with whose name my childhood was familiar. + +The field-paths were safe, and I was allowed to wander off alone +through them. I greatly enjoyed the freedom of a solitary explorer +among the seashells and wild flowers. + +There were wonders everywhere. One day I picked up a star-fish on the +beach (we called it a "five-finger"), and hung him on a tree to dry, +not thinking of him as a living creature. When I went some time after +to take him down he had clasped with two or three of his fingers the +bough where I laid him, so that he could not be removed without +breaking his hardened shell. My conscience smote me when I saw what an +unhappy looking skeleton I had made of him. + +I overtook the horse-shoe crab on the sands, but I did not like to turn +him over and make him "say his prayers," as some of the children did. I +thought it must be wicked. And then he looked so uncomfortable, +imploringly wriggling his claws while he lay upon his back! I believe I +did, however, make a small collection of the shells of stranded +horseshoe crabs deserted by their tenants. + +There were also pretty canary-colored cockle-shells and tiny purple +mussels washed up by the tide. I gathered them into my apron, and +carried them home, and only learned that they too held living +inhabitants by seeing a dead snail protruding from every shell after +they had been left to themselves for a day or two. This made me careful +to pick up only the empty ones, and there were plenty of them. One we +called a "butterboat"; it had something shaped like a seat across the +end of it on the inside. And the curious sea-urchin, that looked as if +he was made only for ornament, when he had once got rid of his spines, +and the transparent jelly-fish, that seemed to have no more right to be +alive than a ladleful of mucilage,--and the razor-shells, and the +barnacles, and the knotted kelp, and the flabby green +sea-aprons,--there was no end to the interesting things I found when I +was trusted to go down to the edge of the tide alone. + +The tide itself was the greatest marvel, slipping away so noiselessly, +and creeping back so softly over the flats, whispering as it reached +the sands, and laughing aloud "I am coming!" as, dashing against the +rocks, it drove me back to where the sea-lovage and purple beach-peas +had dared to root themselves. I listened, and felt through all my +little being that great, surging word of power, but had no guess of its +meaning. I can think of it now as the eternal voice of Law, ever +returning to the green, blossoming, beautiful verge of Gospel truth, to +confirm its later revelation, and to say that Law and Gospel belong +together. "The sea is His, and He made it: and His hands formed the dry +land." + +And the dry land, the very dust of the earth, every day revealed to me +some new miracle of a flower. Coming home from school one warm noon, I +chanced to look down, and saw for the first time the dry roadside all +starred with lavender-tinted flowers, scarcely larger than a pin-head; +fairy-flowers, indeed; prettier than anything that grew in gardens. It +was the red sand-wort; but why a purple flower should be called red, I +do not know. I remember holding these little amethystine blossoms like +jewels in the palm of my hand, and wondering whether people who walked +along that road knew what beautiful things they were treading upon. I +never found the flower open except at noonday, when the sun was +hottest. The rest of the time it was nothing but an insignificant, +dusty-leaved weed,--a weed that was transformed into a flower only for +an hour or two every day. It seemed like magic. + +The busy people at home could tell me very little about the wild +flowers, and when I found a new one I thought I was its discoverer. I +can see myself now leaning in ecstasy over a small, rough-leaved purple +aster in a lonely spot on the hill, and thinking that nobody else in +all the world had ever beheld such a flower before, because I never +had. I did not know then, that the flower-generations are older than +the human race. + +The commonest blossoms were, after all, the dearest, because they were +so familiar. Very few of us lived upon carpeted floors, but soft green +grass stretched away from our door-steps, all golden with dandelions in +spring. Those dandelion fields were like another heaven dropped down +upon the earth, where our feet wandered at will among the stars. What +need had we of luxurious upholstery, when we could step out into such +splendor, from the humblest door? + +The dandelions could tell us secrets, too. We blew the fuzz off their +gray beads, and made them answer our question, "Does my mother want me +to come home?" Or we sat down together in the velvety grass, and wove +chains for our necks and wrists of the dandelion-sterns, and "made +believe" we were brides, or queens, or empresses. + +Then there was the white rock-saxifrage, that filled the crevices of +the ledges with soft, tufty bloom like lingering snow-drifts, our +May-flower, that brought us the first message of spring. There was an +elusive sweetness in its almost imperceptible breath, which one could +only get by smelling it in close bunches. Its companion was the tiny +four-cleft innocence-flower, that drifted pale sky-tints across the +chilly fields. Both came to us in crowds, and looked out with us, as +they do with the small girls and boys of to-day, from the windy crest +of Powder House Hill,--the one playground of my childhood which is left +to the children and the cows just as it was then. We loved these little +democratic blossoms, that gathered around us in mobs at our May Day +rejoicings. It is doubtful whether we should have loved the trailing +arbutus any better, had it strayed, as it never did, into our woods. + +Violets and anemones played at hide-and-seek with us in shady places. +The gay columbine rooted herself among the bleak rocks, and laughed and +nodded in the face of the east wind, coquettishly wasting the show of +her finery on the frowning air. Bluebirds twittered over the dandelions +in spring. In midsummer, goldfinches warbled among the thistle-tops; +and, high above the bird-congregations, the song-sparrow sent forth her +clear, warm, penetrating trill,--sunshine translated into music. + +We were not surfeited, in those days, with what is called pleasure; but +we grew up happy and healthy, learning unconsciously the useful lesson +of doing without. The birds and blossoms hardly won a gladder or more +wholesome life from the air of our homely New England than we did. + +"Out of the strong came forth sweetness." The Beatitudes are the +natural flowering-forth of the Ten Commandments. And the happiness of +our lives was rooted in the stern, vigorous virtues of the people we +lived among, drawing thence its bloom and song, and fragrance. There +was granite in their character and beliefs, but it was granite that +could smile in the sunshine and clothe itself with flowers. We little +ones felt the firm rock beneath us, and were lifted up on it, to +emulate their goodness, and to share their aspirations. + + + +V. + +OLD NEW ENGLAND. + +WHEN I first opened my eyes upon my native town, it was already nearly +two hundred years old, counting from the time when it was part of the +original Salem settlement,--old enough to have gained a character and +an individuality of its own, as it certainly had. We children felt at +once that we belonged to the town, as we did to our father or our +mother. + +The sea was its nearest neighbor, and penetrated to every fireside, +claiming close intimacy with every home and heart. The farmers up and +down the shore were as much fishermen as farmers; they were as familiar +with the Grand Banks of Newfoundland as they were with their own +potato-fields. Every third man you met in the street, you might safely +hail as "Shipmate," or "Skipper," or "Captain." My father's early +seafaring experience gave him the latter title to the end of his life. + +It was hard to keep the boys from going off to sea before they were +grown. No inland occupation attracted them. "Land-lubber" was one of +the most contemptuous epithets heard from boyish lips. The spirit of +adventure developed in them a rough, breezy type of manliness, now +almost extinct. + +Men talked about a voyage to Calcutta, or Hong-Kong, or "up the +Straits,"--meaning Gibraltar and the Mediterranean,--as if it were not +much more than going to the next village. It seemed as if our nearest +neighbors lived over there across the water; we breathed the air of +foreign countries, curiously interblended with our own. + +The women of well-to-do families had Canton crape shawls and Smyrna +silks and Turk satins, for Sabbath-day wear, which somebody had brought +home for them. Mantel-pieces were adorned with nautilus and +conch-shells, and with branches and fans of coral; and children had +foreign curiosities and treasures of the sea for playthings. There was +one imported shell that we did not value much, it was so abundant--the +freckled univalve they called a "prop." Yet it had a mysterious +interest for us little ones. We held it to our ears, and listened for +the sound of the waves, which we were told that, it still kept, and +always would keep. I remember the time when I thought that the ocean +was really imprisoned somewhere within that narrow aperture. + +We were accustomed to seeing barrels full of cocoa-nuts rolled about; +and there were jars of preserved tropical fruits, tamarinds, +ginger-root, and other spicy appetizers, almost as common as barberries +and cranberries, in the cupboards of most housekeepers. + +I wonder what has become of those many, many little red "guinea-peas" +we had to play with! It never seemed as if they really belonged to the +vegetable world, notwithstanding their name. + +We had foreign coins mixed in with our large copper cents,--all kinds, +from the Russian "kopeck" to the "half-penny token" of Great Britain. +Those were the days when we had half cents in circulation to make +change with. For part of our currency was the old-fashioned +"ninepence,"--twelve and a half cents, and the "four pence +ha'penny,"--six cents and a quarter. There was a good deal of Old +England about us still. + +And we had also many living reminders of strange lands across the sea. +Green parrots went scolding and laughing down the thimbleberry hedges +that bordered the cornfields, as much at home out of doors as within. +Java sparrows and canaries and other tropical songbirds poured their +music out of sunny windows into the street, delighting the ears of +passing school children long before the robins came. Now and then +somebody's pet monkey would escape along the stone walls and +shed-roofs, and try to hide from his boy-persecutors by dodging behind +a chimney, or by slipping through an open scuttle, to the terror and +delight of juveniles whose premises he invaded. + +And there were wanderers from foreign countries domesticated in many +families, whose swarthy complexions and un-Caucasian features became +familiar in our streets,--Mongolians, Africans, and waifs from the +Pacific islands, who always were known to us by distinguished +names,--Hector and Scipio, and Julius Caesar and Christopher Columbus. +Families of black people were scattered about the place, relics of a +time when even New England had not freed her slaves. Some of them had +belonged in my great-grandfather's family, and they hung about the old +homestead at "The Farms" long after they were at liberty to go anywhere +they pleased. There was a "Rose" and a "Phillis" among them, who came +often to our house to bring luscious high blackberries from the Farms +woods, or to do the household washing. They seemed pathetically out of +place, although they lived among us on equal terms, respectable and +respected. + +The pathos of the sea haunted the town, made audible to every ear when +a coming northeaster brought the rote of the waves in from the islands +across the harbor-bar, with a moaning like that we heard when we +listened for it in the shell. Almost every house had its sea-tragedy. +Somebody belonging to it had been shipwrecked, or had sailed away one +day, and never returned. + +Our own part of the bay was so sheltered by its islands that there were +seldom any disasters heard of near home, although the names of the two +nearest--Great and Little Misery--are said to have originated with a +shipwreck so far back in the history of the region that it was never +recorded. + +But one such calamity happened in my infancy, spoken of always by those +who knew its victims in subdued tones;--the wreck of the "Persia." The +vessel was returning from the Mediterranean, and in a blinding +snow-storm on a wild March night her captain probably mistook one of +the Cape Ann light-houses for that on Baker's Island, and steered +straight upon the rocks in a lonely cove just outside the cape. In the +morning the bodies of her dead crew were found tossing about with her +cargo of paper-manufacturers' rags, among the breakers. Her captain and +mate were Beverly men, and their funeral from the meeting-house the +next Sabbath was an event which long left its solemnity hanging over +the town. + +We were rather a young nation at this time. The History of the United +States could only tell the story of the American Revolution, of the War +of 1812, and of the administration of about half a dozen presidents. + +Our republicanism was fresh and wide-awake. The edge of George +Washington's little hatchet had not yet been worn down to its +latter-day dullness; it flashed keenly on our young eyes and ears in +the reading books, and through Fourth of July speeches. The Father of +his Country had been dead only a little more than a quarter of a +century, and General Lafayette was still alive; he had, indeed, passed +through our town but a few years before, and had been publicly welcomed +under our own elms and lindens. Even babies echoed the names of our two +heroes in their prattle. + +We had great "training days," when drum and fife took our ears by +storm; When the militia and the Light Infantry mustered and marched +through the streets to the Common with boys and girls at their +heels,--such girls as could get their mother's consent, or the courage +to run off without it.(We never could.)But we always managed to get a +good look at the show in one way or another. + +"Old Election," "'Lection Day" we called it, a lost holiday now, was a +general training day, and it came at our most delightful season, the +last of May. Lilacs and tulips were in bloom, then; and it was a +picturesque fashion of the time for little girls whose parents had no +flower-gardens to go around begging a bunch of lilacs, or a tulip or +two. My mother always made "'Lection cake" for us on that day. It was +nothing but a kind of sweetened bread with a shine of egg-and-molasses +on top; but we thought it delicious. + +The Fourth of July and Thanksgiving Day were the only other holidays +that we made much account of, and the former was a far more well +behaved festival than it is in modern times. The bells rang without +stint, and at morning and noon cannon were fired off. But torpedoes and +fire-crackers did not make the highways dangerous;--perhaps they were +thought too expensive an amusement. Somebody delivered an oration; +there was a good deal said about "this universal Yankee nation"; some +rockets went up from Salem in the evening; we watched them from the +hill, and then went to bed, feeling that we had been good patriots. + +There was always a Fast Day, which I am afraid most of us younger ones +regarded merely as a day when we were to eat unlimited quantities of +molasses-gingerbread, instead of sitting down to our regular meals. + +When I read about Christmas in the English story-books, I wished we +could have that beautiful holiday. But our Puritan fathers shook their +heads at Christmas. + +Our Sabbath-school library books were nearly all English reprints, and +many of the story-books were very interesting. I think that most of my +favorites were by Mrs. Sherwood. Some of them were about life in +India,--"Little Henry and his Bearer," and "Ayah and Lady." Then there +were "The Hedge of Thorns;" "Theophilus and Sophia;" "Anna Ross," and a +whole series of little English books that I took great delight in. + +I had begun to be rather introspective and somewhat unhealthily +self-critical, contrasting myself meanwhile with my sister Lida, just a +little older, who was my usual playmate, and whom I admired very much +for what I could not help seeing,--her unusual sweetness of +disposition. I read Mrs. Sherwood's "Infant's Progress," and I made a +personal application of it, picturing myself as the naughty, willful +"Playful," and my sister Lida as the saintly little "Peace." + +This book gave me a morbid, unhappy feeling, while yet it had something +of the fascination of the "Pilgrim's Progress," of which it is an +imitation. I fancied myself followed about by a fiend-like boy who +haunted its pages, called "Inbred-Sin;" and the story implied that +there was no such thing as getting rid of him. I began to dislike all +boys on his account. There was one who tormented my sister and me--we +only knew him by name--by jumping out at us from behind doorways or +fences on our way to school, making horrid faces at us. "Inbred-Sin," I +was certain, looked just like him; and the two, strangely blended in +one hideous presence, were the worst nightmare of my dreams. There was +too much reality about that "Inbreed-Sin." I felt that I was acquainted +with him. He was the hateful hero of the little allegory, as Satan is +of "Paradise Lost." + +I liked lessons that came to me through fables and fairy tales, +although, in reading Aesop, I invariably skipped the "moral" pinned on +at the end, and made one for myself, or else did without. + +Mrs. Lydia Maria Child's story of "The Immortal Fountain," in the +"Girl's Own Book,"--which it was the joy of my heart to read, although +it preached a searching sermon to me,--I applied in the same way that I +did the "Infant's Progress." I thought of Lida as the gentle, unselfish +Rose, and myself as the ugly Marion. She was patient and obliging, and +I felt that I was the reverse. She was considered pretty, and I knew +that I was the reverse of that, too. I wondered if Lida really had +bathed in the Immortal Fountain, and oh, how I wished I could find the +way there! But I feared that trying to do so would be of no use; the +fairies would cross their wands to keep me back, and their wings would +darken at my approach. + +The book that I loved first and best, and lived upon in my childhood, +was "Pilgrim's Progress." It was as a story that I cared for it, +although I knew that it meant something more,--something that was +already going on in my own heart and life. Oh, how I used to wish that +I too could start off on a pilgrimage! It would be so much easier than +the continual, discouraging struggle to be good! + +The lot I most envied was that of the contented Shepherd Boy in the +Valley of Humiliation, singing his cheerful songs, and wearing "the +herb called Heart's Ease in his bosom"; but all the glorious ups and +downs of the "Progress" I would gladly have shared with Christiana and +her children, never desiring to turn aside into any "By-Path Meadow" +while Mr. Great-Heart led the way, and the Shining Ones came down to +meet us along the road. It was one of the necessities of my nature, as +a child, to have some one being, real or ideal, man or woman, before +whom I inwardly bowed down and worshiped. Mr. Great-Heart was the +perfect hero of my imagination. Nobody, in books or out of them, +compared with him. I wondered if there were really any Mr. Great-Hearts +to be met with among living men. + +I remember reading this beloved book once in a snow-storm, and looking +up from it out among the white, wandering flakes, with a feeling that +they had come down from heaven as its interpreters; that they were +trying to tell me, in their airy up-and-down-flight, the story of +innumerable souls. I tried to fix my eye on one particular flake, and +to follow its course until it touched the earth. But I found that I +could not. A little breeze was stirring an the flake seemed to go and +return, to descend and then ascend again, as if hastening homeward to +the sky, losing itself at last in the airy, infinite throng, and +leaving me filled with thoughts of that "great multitude, which no man +could number, clothed with white robes," crowding so gloriously into +the closing pages of the Bible. + +Oh, if I could only be sure that I should some time be one of that +invisible company! But the heavens were already beginning to look a +great way off. I hummed over one of my best loved hymns,-- + + "Who are these in bright array?" + +and that seemed to bring them nearer again. + +The history of the early martyrs, the persecutions of the Waldenses and +of the Scotch Covenanters, I read and re-read with longing emulation! +Why could not I be a martyr, too? It would be so beautiful to die for +the truth as they did, as Jesus did! I did not understand then that He +lived and died to show us what life really means, and to give us true +life, like His,--the life of love to God with all our hearts, of love +to all His human children for His sake;--and that to live this life +faithfully is greater even than to die a martyr's death. + +It puzzled me to know what some of the talk I heard about being a +Christian could mean. I saw that it was something which only men and +women could comprehend. And yet they taught me to say those dear words +of the Master, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me!" Surely He +meant what He said. He did not tell the children that they must receive +the kingdom of God like grown people; He said that everybody must enter +into it "as a little child." + +But our fathers were stalwart men, with many foes to encounter. If +anybody ever needed a grown-up religion, they surely did; and it became +them well. + +Most of our every-day reading also came to us over the sea. Miss +Edgworth's juvenile stories were in general circulation, and we knew +"Harry and Lucy" and "Rosamond" almost as well as we did our own +playmates. But we did not think those English children had so good a +time as we did; they had to be so prim and methodical. It seemed to us +that the little folks across the water never were allowed to romp and +run wild; some of us may have held a vague idea that this freedom of +ours was the natural inheritance of republican children only. + +Primroses and cowslips and daisies bloomed in these pleasant +story-books of ours, and we went a-Maying there, with our transatlantic +playmates. I think we sometimes started off with our baskets, expecting +to find those English flowers in our own fields. How should children be +wiser than to look for every beautiful thing they have heard of, on +home ground? + +And, indeed, our commonest field-flowers were, many of them, +importations from the mother-country--clover, and dandelions, and +ox-eye daisies. I was delighted when my mother told me one day that a +yellow flower I brought her was a cowslip, for I thought she meant that +it was the genuine English cowslip, which I had read about. I was +disappointed to learn that it was a native blossom, the marsh-marigold. + +My sisters had some books that I appropriated to myself a great deal: +"Paul and Virginia;" "Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia;" "Nina: an +Icelandic Tale;" with the "Vicar of Wakefield;" the "Tour to the +Hebrides;" "Gulliver's Travels;" the "Arabian Nights;" and some odd +volumes of Sir Walter Scott's novels. + +I read the "Scottish Chiefs"--my first novel when I was about five +years old. So absorbed was I in the sorrows of Lady Helen Mar and Sir +William Wallace, that I crept into a corner where nobody would notice +me, and read on through sunset into moonlight, with eyes blurred with +tears. I did not feel that I was doing anything wrong, for I had heard +my father say he was willing his daughters should read that one novel. +He probably did not intend the remark for the ears of his youngest, +however. + +My appetite for reading was omnivorous, and I devoured a great many +romances. My sisters took them from a circulating library, many more, +perhaps, than came to my parents' knowledge; but it was not often that +one escaped me, wherever it was hidden. I did not understand what I was +reading, to be sure; and that was one of the best and worst things +about it. The sentimentalism of some of those romances was altogether +unchildlike; but I did not take much of it in. It was the habit of +running over pages and pages to get to the end of a story, the habit of +reading without caring what I read, that I know to have been bad for my +mind. To use a nautical expression, my brain was in danger of getting +"water-logged." There are so many more books of fiction written +nowadays, I do not see how the young people who try to read one tenth +of them have any brains left for every-day use. + +One result of my infantile novel-reading was that I did not like to +look at my own face in a mirror, because it was so unlike that of +heroines, always pictured with "high white foreheads" and "cheeks of a +perfect oval." Mine was round, ruddy, and laughing with health; and, +though I practiced at the glass a good deal, I could not lengthen it by +puckering down my lips. I quite envied the little girls who were pale +and pensive-looking, as that was the only ladyfied standard in the +romances. Of course, the chief pleasure of reading them was that of +identifying myself with every new heroine. They began to call me a +"bookworm" at home. I did not at all relish the title. + +It was fortunate for me that I liked to be out of doors a great deal, +and that I had a brother, John, who was willing to have me for an +occasional companion. Sometimes he would take me with him when he went +huckleberrying, up the rural Montserrat Road, through Cat Swamp, to the +edge of Burnt Hills and Beaver Pond. He had a boy's pride in explaining +these localities to me, making me understand that I had a guide who was +familiar with every inch of the way. Then, charging me not to move +until he came back, he would leave me sitting alone on a great craggy +rock, while he went off and filled his basket out of sight among the +bushes. Indeed, I did not want to move, it was all so new and +fascinating. The tall pine-trees whispering to each other across the +sky-openings above me, the graceful ferns, the velvet mosses dotted +with scarlet fairy-cups, as if the elves had just spread their table +for tea, the unspeakable charm of the spice-breathing air, all wove a +web of enchantment about me, from which I had no wish to disentangle +myself. The silent spell of the woods held me with a power stronger +even than that of the solemn-voiced sea. Sometimes this same brother +would get permission to take me on a longer excursion,--to visit the +old homestead at "The Farms." Three or four miles was not thought too +long a walk for a healthy child of five years; and that road, in the +old time, led through a rural Paradise, beautiful at every +season,--whether it were the time of song-sparrows and violets, of wild +roses, of coral-hung barberry-bushes, or of fallen leaves and +snow-drifts. The wildness of the road, now exchanged for elegant modern +cultivation, was its great charm to us. We stopped at the Cove Brook to +hear the cat-birds sing, and at Mingo's Beach to revel in the sudden +surprise of the open sea, and to listen to the chant of the waves, +always stronger and grander there than anywhere along the shore. We +passed under dark wooded cliffs out into sunny openings, the last of +which held under its skirting pines the secret of the prettiest +woodpath to us in all the world, the path to the ancestral farmhouse. + +We found children enough to play with there,--as numerous a family as +our own. We were sometimes, I fancy, the added drop too much of already +overflowing juvenility. Farther down the road, where the cousins were +all grown-up men and women, Aunt Betsey's cordial, old-fashioned +hospitality sometimes detained us a day or two. We watched the milking, +and fed the chickens, and fared gloriously. Aunt Betsey could not have +done more to entertain us, had we been the President's children. + +I have always cherished the memory of a certain pair of large-bowed +spectacles that she wore, and of the green calash, held by a ribbon +bridle, that sheltered her head, when she walked up from the shore to +see us, as she often did. They announced to us the approach of +inexhaustible kindliness and good cheer. We took in a home-feeling with +the words "Aunt Betsey" then and always. She had just the husband that +belonged to her in my Uncle David, an upright man, frank-faced, +large-hearted, and spiritually minded. He was my father's favorite +brother, and to our branch of the family "The Farms" meant "Uncle David +and Aunt Betsey." + +My brother John's plans for my entertainment did not always harmonize +entirely with my own ideas. He had an inventive mind, and wanted me to +share his boyish sports. But I did not like to ride in a wheelbarrow, +nor to walk on stilts, nor even to coast down the hill on his sled and +I always got a tumble, if I tried, for I was rather a clumsy child; +besides, I much preferred girls' quieter games. + +We were seldom permitted to play with any boys except our brothers. I +drew the inference that our boys must be a great deal better than "the +other boys." My brother John had some fine play-fellows, but he seemed +to consider me in the way when they were his guests. Occasionally we +would forget that the neighbor-boys were not girls, and would find +ourselves all playing together in delightful unconsciousness; although +possibly a thought, like that of the "Ettrick Shepherd," may now and +then have flitted through the mind of some masculine juvenile:-- + + "Why the boys should drive away + Little sweet maidens from the play, + Or love to banter and fight so well,-- + That Is the thing I never could tell." + +One day I thoughtlessly accepted an invitation to get through a gap in +the garden-fence, to where the doctor's two boys were preparing to take +an imaginary sleigh-ride in midsummer. The sleigh was stranded among +tall weeds an cornstalks, but I was politely handed in by the elder +boy, who sat down by my side and tucked his little brother in front at +our feet, informing me that we were father and mother and little son, +going to take a ride to Newburyport. He had found an old pair of reins +and tied them to a saw-horse, that he switched and "Gee-up"-ed +vigorously. The journey was as brief as delightful. I ran home feeling +like the heroine of an elopement, asking myself meanwhile, "What would +my brother John say if he knew I had been playing with boys?" He was +very particular about his sisters' behavior. But I incautiously said to +one sister in whom I did not usually confide, that I thought James was +the nicest boy in the lane, and that I liked his little brother +Charles, too. She laughed at me so unmercifully for making the remark, +that I never dared look towards the gap in the fence again, beyond +which I could hear the boys' voices around the old sleigh where they +were playing, entirely forgetful of their former traveling companion. +Still, I continued to think that my courteous cavalier, James, was the +nicest boy in the lane. + +My brother's vigilant care of his two youngest sisters was once the +occasion to them of a serious fright. My grandfather--the +sexton--sometimes trusted him to toll the bell for a funeral. In those +days the bell was tolled for everybody who died. John was social, and +did not like to go up into the belfry and stay an hour or so alone, and +as my grandfather positively forbade him to take any other boy up +there, he one day got permission for us two little girls to go with +him, for company. We had to climb up a great many stairs, and the last +flight was inclosed by a rough door with a lock inside, which he was +charged to fasten, so that no mischievous boys should follow. + +It was strange to be standing up there in the air, gazing over the +balcony-railing down into the street, where the men and women looked so +small, and across to the water and the ships in the east, and the +clouds and hills in the west! But when he struck the tongue against the +great bell, close to our ears, it was more than we were prepared for. +The little sister, scarcely three years old, screamed and shrieked,-- + +"I shall be stunned-ded! I shall be stunned-ded!" I do not know where +she had picked up that final syllable, but it made her terror much more +emphatic. Still the great waves of solemn sound went eddying on, over +the hills and over the sea, and we had to hear it all, though we +stopped our ears with our fingers. It was an immense relief to us when +the last stroke of the passing-bell was struck, and John said we could +go down. + +He took the key from his pocket and was fitting it into the lock, when +it slipped, beyond our reach. Now the little sister cried again, and +would not be pacified; and when I looked up and caught John's blank, +dismayed look, I began to feel like crying, too. The question went +swiftly through my mind,--How many days can we stay up here without +starving to death?--for I really thought we should never get down out +of our prison in the air: never see our mother's face again. + +But my brother's wits returned to him. He led us back to the balcony, +and shouted over the railing to a boy in the street, making him +understand that he must go and inform my father that we were locked +into the belfry. It was not long before we saw both him and my +grandfather on their way to the church. They came up to the little +door, and told us to push with our united strength against it. The +rusty lock soon yielded, and how good it was to look into those two +beloved human faces once more! But we little girls were not invited to +join my brother again when he tolled the bell: if we had been, I think +we should have promptly declined the invitation. + +Many of my childish misadventures came to me in connection with my +little sister, who, having been much indulged, too it for granted that +she could always have what she wanted. + +One day we two were allowed to take a walk together; I, as the older, +being supposed to take care of her. Although we were going towards the +Cove, over a secluded road, she insisted upon wearing a brand-new pair +of red morocco boots. All went well until we came to a bog by the +roadside, where sweet-flag and cat-tails grew. Out in the middle of the +bog, where no venturesome boy had ever attempted their seizure, there +were many tall, fine-looking brown cat-tails growing. She caught sight +of them, and before I saw what she was doing, she had shot from my side +like an arrow from the bow, and was far out on the black, quaking +surface, that at first upheld her light weight. I stood petrified with +horror. I knew all about that dangerous place. I had been told that +nobody had ever found out how deep that mud was. I was uttered just one +imploring "Come back!" when she turned to me with a shriek, throwing up +her arms towards me. She was sinking! There was nobody in sight, and +there was no time to think. I ran, or rather flew, across the bog, with +just one thought in my mind, "I have got to get her out!" Some angel +must have prevented me from making a misstep, and sinking with her. I +felt the power of a giant suddenly taking possession of my small frame. +Quicker than I could tell of it, I had given one tremendous pull (she +had already sunk above her boot-tops), and had dragged her back to the +road. It is a marvel to me now how I--a child of scarcely six +years--succeeded in rescuing her. It did not seem to me as if I were +doing it myself, but as if some unseen Power had taken possession of me +for a moment, and made me do it. And I suppose that when we act from a +sudden impulse to help another out of trouble, it never is ourself that +does the good deed. The Highest Strength just takes us and uses us. I +certainly felt equal to going straight through the earth to China after +my little sister, if she had stink out of sight. + +We were two miserable looking children when we reached home, the sticky +ooze having changed her feet into unmanageable lumps of mud, with which +my own clothes also were soiled. I had to drag or carry her all the +way, for she could not or would not walk a step. And alas for the +morocco boots! They were never again red. I also received a scolding +for not taking better care of my little sister, and I was not very soon +allowed again to have her company in my rambles. + +We usually joined with other little neighbor girls in some out-of-door +amusement near home. And our sports, as well as our books, had a spice +of Merry Old England. They were full of kings and queens, and made +sharp contrasts, as well as odd mixtures, with the homeliness of our +everyday life. + +One of them, a sort of rhymed dialogue, began with the couplet:-- + + "Queen Anne, Queen Anne, she sits in the sun, + As fair as a lady, as white as a nun." + +If "Queen Anne" did not give a right guess as to which hand of the +messenger held the king's letter to her, she was contemptuously +informed that she was + + "as brown as a bun." + +In another name, four little girls joined hands across, in couples, +chanting:-- + + "I wish my father were a king, + I wish my mother were a queen, + And I a little companion!" + +concluding with a close embrace in a dizzying whirl, breathlessly +shouting all together,-- + + "A bundle of fagots! A bundle of fagots!" + +In a third, which may have begun with a juvenile reacting of the +Colonial struggle for liberty, we ranged ourselves under two leaders, +who made an archway over our heads of their lifted hands and arms, +saying, as we passed beneath,-- + + "Lift up the gates as high as the sky, + And let King George and his army pass by!" + +We were told to whisper "Oranges" or "Lemons" for a pass-word; and +"Oranges" always won the larger enlistment, whether British or American. + +And then there was "Grandmother Gray," and the + + "Old woman from Newfoundland, + With all her children in her hand;" + +and the + + "Knight from Spain + Inquiring for your daughter Jane," + +and numberless others, nearly all of them bearing a distinct Old World +flavor. One of our play-places was an unoccupied end of the +burying-ground, overhung by the Colonel's apple-trees and close under +his wall, so that we should not be too near the grave-stones. + +I do not think that death was at all a real thing to me or to my +brothers and sisters at this time. We lived so near the graveyard that +it seemed merely the extension of our garden. We wandered there at +will, trying to decipher the moss-grown inscriptions, and wondering at +the homely carvings of cross-bones and cherubs and willow-trees on the +gray slate-stones. I did not associate those long green mounds with +people who had once lived, though we were careful, having been so +instructed, not to step on the graves. To ramble about there and puzzle +ourselves with the names and dates, was like turning over the pages of +a curious old book. We had not the least feeling of irreverence in +taking the edge of the grave-yard for our playground. It was known as +"the old burying-ground"; and we children regarded it with a sort of +affectionate freedom, as we would a grandmother, because it was old. + +That, indeed, was one peculiar attraction of the town itself; it was +old, and it seemed old, much older than it does now. There was only one +main street, said to have been the first settlers' cowpath to Wenham, +which might account for its zigzag picturesqueness. All the rest were +courts or lanes. + +The town used to wear a delightful air of drowsiness, as if she had +stretched herself out for an afternoon nap, with her head towards her +old mother, Salem, and her whole length reclining towards the sea, till +she felt at her feet, through her green robes, the clip of the deep +water at the Farms. All her elder children recognized in her quiet +steady-going ways a maternal unity and strength of character, as of a +town that understood her own plans, and had settled down to peaceful, +permanent habits. Her spirit was that of most of our Massachusetts +coast-towns. They were transplanted shoots of Old England. And it was +the voice of a mother-country more ancient than their own, that little +children heard crooning across the sea in their cradle-hymns and +nursery-songs. + + + +VI. + +GLIMPSES OF POETRY. + +OUR close relationship to Old England was sometimes a little misleading +to us juveniles. The conditions of our life were entirely different, +but we read her descriptive stories and sang her songs as if they were +true for us, too. One of the first things I learned to repeat--I think +it was in the spelling-book--began with the verse:-- + + "I thank the goodness and the grace + That on my birth has smiled, + And made me, in these latter days, + A happy English child." + +And some lines of a very familiar hymn by Dr. Watts ran thus:-- + + "Whene'er I take my walks abroad, + How many poor I see. + . . . . . . . . . . . . + "How many children in the street + Half naked I behold; + While I am clothed from head to feet, + And sheltered from the cold." + +Now a ragged, half-clothed child, or one that could really be called +poor, in the extreme sense of the word, was the rarest of all sights in +a thrifty New England town fifty years ago. I used to look sharply for +those children, but I never could see one. And a beggar! Oh, if a real +beggar would come along, like the one described in + + "Pity the sorrows of a poor old man," + +what a wonderful event that would be! I believe I had more curiosity +about a beggar, and more ignorance, too, than about a king. The poem +read:-- + + "A pampered menial drove me from the door." + +What sort of creature could a "pampered menial" be? Nothing that had +ever come under our observation corresponded to the words. Nor was it +easy for us to attach any meaning to the word "servant." There were +women who came in occasionally to do the washing, or to help about +extra work. But they were decently clothed, and had homes of their own, +more or less comfortable, and their quaint talk and free-and-easy ways +were often as much of a lift to the household as the actual assistance +they rendered. + +I settled down upon the conclusion that "rich" and "poor" were +book-words only, describing something far off, and having nothing to do +with our every-day experience. My mental definition of "rich people," +from home observation, was something like this: People who live in +three-story houses, and keep their green blinds closed, and hardly ever +come out and talk with the folks in the street. There were a few such +houses in Beverly, and a great many in Salem, where my mother sometimes +took me for a shopping walk. But I did not suppose that any of the +people who lived near us were very rich, like those in books. + +Everybody about us worked, and we expected to take hold of our part +while young. I think we were rather eager to begin, for we believed +that work would make men and women of us. + +I, however, was not naturally an industrious child, but quite the +reverse. When my father sent us down to weed his vegetable-garden at +the foot of the lane, I, the youngest of his weeders, liked to go with +the rest, but not for the sake of the work or the pay. I generally gave +it up before I had weeded half a bed. It made me so warm! and my back +did ache so! I stole off into the shade of the great apple-trees, and +let the west wind fan my hot cheeks, and looked up into the boughs, and +listened to the many, many birds that seemed chattering to each other +in a language of their own. What was it they were saying? and why could +not I understand it? Perhaps I should, sometime. I had read of people +who did, in fairy tales. + +When the others started homeward, I followed. I did not mind their +calling me lazy, nor that my father gave me only one tarnished copper +cent, while Lida received two or three bright ones. I had had what I +wanted most. I would rather sit under the apple-trees and hear the +birds sing than have a whole handful of bright copper pennies. It was +well for my father and his garden that his other children were not like +me. + +The work which I was born to, but had not begun to do, was sometimes a +serious weight upon my small, forecasting brain. + +One of my hymns ended with the lines,-- + + "With books, and work, and healthful play, + May my first years be passed, + That I may give, for every day, + Some good account at last." + +I knew all about the books and the play; but the work,--how should I +ever learn to do it? + +My father had always strongly emphasized his wish that all his +children, girls as well as boys, should have some independent means of +self-support by the labor of their hands; that every one should, as was +the general custom, "learn a trade." Tailor's work--the finishing of +men's outside garments--was the trade learned most frequently by women +in those days, and one or more of my older sisters worked at it; I +think it must have been at home, for I somehow or somewhere got the +idea, while I was a small child, that the chief end of woman was to +make clothing for mankind. + +This thought came over me with a sudden dread one Sabbath morning when +I was a toddling thing, led along by my sister, behind my father and +mother. As they walked arm in arm before me, I lifted my eyes from my +father's heels to his head, and mused: "How tall he is! and how long +his coat looks! and how many thousand, thousand stitches there must be +in his coat and pantaloons! And I suppose I have got to grow up and +have a husband, and put all those little stitches into his coats and +pantaloons. Oh, I never, never can do it!" A shiver of utter +discouragement went through me. With that task before me, it hardly +seemed to me as if life were worth living. I went on to meeting, and I +suppose I forgot my trouble in a hymn, but for the moment it was real. +It was not the only time in my life that I have tired myself out with +crossing bridges to which I never came. + +Another trial confronted me in the shape of an ideal but impossible +patchwork quilt. We learned to sew patchwork at school, while we were +learning the alphabet; and almost every girl, large or small, had a +bed-quilt of her own begun, with an eye to future house furnishing. I +was not over fond of sewing, but I thought it best to begin mine early. + +So I collected a few squares of calico, and undertook to put them +together in my usual independent way, without asking direction. I liked +assorting those little figured bits of cotton cloth, for they were +scraps of gowns I had seen worn, and they reminded me of the persons +who wore them. One fragment, in particular, was like a picture to me. +It was a delicate pink and brown sea-moss pattern, on a white ground, a +piece of a dress belonging to my married sister, who was to me bride +and angel in One. I always saw her face before me when I unfolded this +scrap,--a face with an expression truly heavenly in its loveliness. +Heaven claimed her before my childhood was ended. Her beautiful form +was laid to rest in mid-ocean, too deep to be pillowed among the soft +sea-mosses. But she lived long enough to make a heaven of my childhood +whenever she came home. + +One of the sweetest of our familiar hymns I always think of as +belonging to her, and as a still unbroken bond between her spirit and +mine. She had come back to us for a brief visit, soon after her +marriage, with some deep, new experience of spiritual realities which +I, a child of four or five years, felt in the very tones of her voice, +and in the expression of her eyes. + +My mother told her of my fondness for the hymn-book, and she turned to +me with a smile and said, "Won't you learn one hymn for me--one hymn +that I love very much?" + +Would I not? She could not guess how happy she made me by wishing me to +do anything for her sake. The hymn was,-- + + "Whilst Thee I seek, protecting Power." + +In a few minutes I repeated the whole to her and its own beauty, +pervaded with the tenderness of her love for me, fixed it at once +indelibly in my memory. Perhaps I shall repeat it to her again, +deepened with a lifetime's meaning, beyond the sea, and beyond the +stars. + +I could dream over my patchwork, but I could not bring it into +conventional shape. My sisters, whose fingers had been educated, +called my sewing "gobblings." I grew disgusted with it myself, and gave +away all my pieces except the pretty sea-moss pattern, which I was not +willing to see patched up with common calico. It was evident that I +should never conquer fate with my needle. + +Among other domestic traditions of the old times was the saying that +every girl must have a pillow-case full of stockings of her own +knitting before she was married. Here was another mountain before me, +for I took it for granted that marrying was inevitable--one of the +things that everybody must do, like learning to read, or going to +meeting. + +I began to knit my own stockings when I ways six or seven years old, +and kept on, until home-made stockings went out of fashion. The +pillow-case full, however, was never attempted, any more than the +patchwork quilt. I heard somebody say one day that there must always be +one "old maid" in every family of girls, and I accepted the prophecy of +some of my elders, that I was to be that one. I was rather glad to know +that freedom of choice in the matter was possible. + +One day, when we younger ones were hanging about my golden-haired and +golden-hearted sister Emilie, teasing her with wondering questions +about our future, she announced to us (she had reached the mature age +of fifteen years) that she intended to be an old maid, and that we +might all come and live with her. Some one listening reproved her, but +she said, "Why, if they fit themselves to be good, helpful, cheerful +old maids, they will certainly be better wives, if they ever are +married," and that maxim I laid by in my memory for future +contingencies, for I believed in every word she ever uttered. She +herself, however, did not carry out her girlish intention. "Her +children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also; and he +praiseth her." But the little sisters she used to fondle as her +"babies" have never allowed their own years nor her changed relations +to cancel their claim upon her motherly sympathies. + +I regard it as a great privilege to have been one of a large family, +and nearly the youngest. We had strong family resemblances, and yet no +two seemed at all alike. It was like rehearsing in a small world each +our own part in the great one awaiting us. If we little ones +occasionally had some severe snubbing mixed with the petting and +praising and loving, that was wholesome for us, and not at all to be +regretted. + +Almost every one of my sisters had some distinctive aptitude with her +fingers. One worked exquisite lace-embroidery; another had a knack at +cutting and fitting her doll's clothing so perfectly that the wooden +lady was always a typical specimen of the genteel doll-world; and +another was an expert at fine stitching, so delicately done that it was +a pleasure to see or to wear anything her needle had touched. I had +none of these gifts. I looked on and admired, and sometimes tried to +imitate, but my efforts usually ended in defeat and mortification. + +I did like to knit, however, and I could shape a stocking tolerably +well. My fondness for this kind of work was chiefly because it did not +require much thought. Except when there was "widening" or "narrowing" +to be done, I did not need to keep my eyes upon it at all. So I took a +book upon my lap and read, and read, while the needles clicked on, +comforting me with the reminder that I was not absolutely unemployed, +while yet I was having a good time reading. + +I began to know that I liked poetry, and to think a good deal about it +at my childish work. Outside of the hymn-book, the first rhymes I +committed to memory were in the "Old Farmer's Almanac," files of which +hung in the chimney corner, and were an inexhaustible source of +entertainment to us younger ones. + +My father kept his newspapers also carefully filed away in the garret, +but we made sad havoc among the "Palladiums" and other journals that we +ought to have kept as antiquarian treasures. We valued the anecdote +column and the poet's corner only; these we clipped unsparingly for our +scrap-books. + +A tattered copy of Johnson's large Dictionary was a great delight to +me, on account of the specimens of English versification which I found +in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so many poems. I +used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; and I amused myself +when I awoke in the morning by reciting its jingling contrasts of +iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and thinking what a charming +occupation it must be to "make up" verses. + +I made my first rhymes when I was about seven years old. My brother +John proposed "writing poetry" as a rainy-day amusement, one afternoon +when we two were sent up into the garret to entertain ourselves without +disturbing the family. He soon grew tired of his unavailing attempts, +but I produced two stanzas, the first of which read thus:-- + + "One summer day, said little Jane, + We were walking down a shady lane, + When suddenly the wind blew high, + And the red lightning flashed in the sky. + +The second stanza descended in a dreadfully abrupt anti-climax; but I +was blissfully ignorant of rhetoricians' rules, and supposed that the +rhyme was the only important thing. It may amuse my child-readers if I +give them this verse too: + + "The peals of thunder, how they rolled! + And I felt myself a little cooled; + For I before had been quite warm; + But now around me was a storm." + +My brother was surprised at my success, and I believe I thought my +verses quite fine, too. But I was rather sorry that I had written them, +for I had to say them over to the family, and then they sounded silly. +The habit was formed, however, and I went on writing little books of +ballads, which I illustrated with colors from my toy paintbox, and then +squeezed down into the cracks of the garret floor, for fear that +somebody would find them. + +My fame crept out among the neighbors, nevertheless. I was even invited +to write some verses in young lady's album; and Aunt Hannah asked me to +repeat my verses to her. I considered myself greatly honored by both +requests. + +My fondness for books began very early. At the age of four I had formed +the plan of collecting a library. Not of limp, paper-covered +picture-books, such as people give to babies; no! I wanted books with +stiff covers, that could stand up side by side on a shelf, and maintain +their own character as books. But I did not know how to make a +beginning, for mine were all of the kind manufactured for infancy, and +I thought they deserved no better fate than to be tossed about among my +rag-babies and playthings. + +One day, however, I found among some rubbish in a corner a volume, with +one good stiff cover; the other was missing. It did not look so very +old, nor as if it had been much read; neither did it look very inviting +to me as I turned its leaves. On its title-page I read "The Life of +John Calvin." I did not know who he was, but a book was a book to me, +and this would do as well as any to begin my library with. I looked +upon it as a treasure, and to make sure of my claim, I took it down to +my mother and timidly asked if I might have it for my own. She gave me +in reply a rather amused "Yes," and I ran back happy, and began my +library by setting John Calvin upright on a beam under the garret +eaves, my "make-believe" book-case shelf. + +I was proud of my literary property, and filled out the shelf in fancy +with a row of books, every one of which should have two stiff covers. +But I found no more neglected volumes that I could adopt. John Calvin +was left to a lonely fate, and am afraid that at last the mice devoured +him. Before I had quite forgotten him, however, I did pick up one other +book of about his size, and in the same one-covered condition; and this +attracted me more, because it was in verse. Rhyme had always a sort of +magnetic power over me, whether I caught at any idea it contained or +not. + +This was written in the measure which I afterwards learned was called +Spenserian. It was Byron's "Vision of Judgment," and Southey's also was +bound up with it. + +Southey's hexameters were too much of a mouthful for me, but Byron's +lines jingled, and apparently told a story about something. St. Peter +came into it, and King George the Third; neither of which names meant +anything to me; but the scenery seemed to be somewhere up among the +clouds, and I, unsuspicious of the author's irreverence, took it for a +sort of semi-Biblical fairy tale. + +There was on my mother's bed a covering of pink chintz, pictured all +over with the figure of a man sitting on a cloud, holding a bunch of +keys. I put the two together in my mind, imagining the chintz +counterpane to be an illustration of the poem, or the poem an +explanation of the counterpane. For the stanza I liked best began with +the words,-- + + "St. Peter sat at the celestial gate, + And nodded o'er his keys." + +I invented a pronunciation for the long words, and went about the house +reciting grandly,-- + + "St. Peter sat at the kelestikal gate, + And nodded o'er his keys." + +That volume, swept back to me with the rubbish of Time, still reminds +me, forlorn and half-clad, of my childish fondness for its +mock-magnificence. + +John Calvin and Lord Byron were rather a peculiar combination, as the +foundation of an infant's library; but I was not aware of any unfitness +or incompatibility. To me they were two brother-books, like each other +in their refusal to wear limp covers. + +It is amusing to recall the rapid succession of contrasts in one +child's tastes. I felt no incongruity between Dr. Watts and Mother +Goose. I supplemented "Pibroch of Donuil Dhu" and + + "Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day," + +with "Yankee Doodle" and the "Diverting History of John Gilpin;" and +with the glamour of some fairy tale I had just read still haunting me, +I would run out of doors eating a big piece of bread and +butter,--sweeter than any has tasted since,--and would jump up towards +the crows cawing high above me, cawing back to them, and half wishing I +too were a crow to make the sky ring with my glee. + +After Dr. Watts's hymns the first poetry I took great delight in +greeted me upon the pages of the "American First Class Book," handed +down from older pupils in the little private school which my sisters +and I attended when Aunt Hannah had done all she could for us. That +book was a collection of excellent literary extracts, made by one who +was himself an author and a poet. It deserved to be called +"first-class" in another sense than that which was understood by its +title. I cannot think that modern reading books have improved upon it +much. It contained poems from Wordsworth, passages from Shakespeare's +plays, among them the pathetic dialogue between Hubert and little +Prince Arthur, whose appeal to have his eyes spared, brought many a +tear to my own. Bryant's "Waterfowl" and "Thanatopsis" were there also; +and Neal's,-- + + "There's a fierce gray bird with a bending beak," + +that the boys loved so dearly to "declaim;" and another poem by this +last author, which we all liked to read, partly from a childish love of +the tragic, and partly for its graphic description of an avalanche's +movement:-- + + "Slowly it came in its mountain wrath, + And the forests vanished before its path; + And the rude cliffs bowed; and the waters fled,-- + And the valley of life was the tomb of the dead." + +In reading this, "Swiss Minstrel's Lament over the Ruins of Goldau," I +first felt my imagination thrilled with the terrible beauty of the +mountains--a terror and a sublimity which attracted my thoughts far +more than it awed them. But the poem in which they burst upon me as +real presences, unseen, yet known in their remote splendor as kingly +friends before whom I could bow, yet with whom I could aspire,--for +something like this I think mountains must always be to those who truly +love them,--was Coleridge's "Mont Blanc before Sunrise," in this same +"First Class Book." I believe that poetry really first took possession +of me in that poem, so that afterwards I could not easily mistake the +genuineness of its ring, though my ear might not be sufficiently +trained to catch its subtler harmonies. This great mountain poem struck +some hidden key-note in my nature, and I knew thenceforth something of +what it was to live in poetry, and to have it live in me. Of course I +did not consider my own foolish little versifying poetry. The child of +eight or nine years regarded her rhymes as only one among her many +games and pastimes. + +But with this ideal picture of mountain scenery there came to me a +revelation of poetry as the one unattainable something which I must +reach out after, because I could not live without it. The thought of it +was to me like the thought of God and of truth. To leave out poetry +would be to lose the real meaning of life. I felt this very blindly and +vaguely, no doubt; but the feeling was deep. It was as if Mont Blanc +stood visibly before me, while I murmured to myself in lonely places-- + + "Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! + Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven + Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun + Clothe you with rainbows? Who with lovely flowers + Of living blue spread garlands at your feet?" + +And then the + + "Pine groves with their soft and soul-like sound" + +gave glorious answer, with the streams and torrents, and my child-heart +in its trance echoed the poet's invocation,-- + + "Rise, like a cloud of incense from the earth! + And tell the stars, and tell the rising sun, + Earth, with her thousand voices, calls on GOD!" + +I have never visited Switzerland, but I surely saw the Alps, with +Coleridge, in my childhood. And although I never stood face to face +with mountains until I was a mature woman, always, after this vision of +them, they were blended with my dream of whatever is pure and lofty in +human possibilities,--like a white ideal beckoning me on. + +Since I am writing these recollections for the young, I may say here +that I regard a love for poetry as one of the most needful and helpful +elements in the life-outfit of a human being. It was the greatest of +blessings to me, in the long days of toil to which I was shut in much +earlier than most young girls are, that the poetry I held in my memory +breathed its enchanted atmosphere through me and around me, and touched +even dull drudgery with its sunshine. + +Hard work, however, has its own illumination--if done as duty which +worldliness has not; and worldliness seems to be the greatest +temptation and danger Of young people in this generation. Poetry is one +of the angels whose presence will drive out this sordid demon, if +anything less than the Power of the Highest can. But poetry is of the +Highest. It is the Divine Voice, always, that we recognize through the +poet's, whenever he most deeply moves our souls. + +Reason and observation, as well as my own experience, assure me also +that it is great--poetry even the greatest--which the youngest crave, +and upon which they may be fed, because it is the simplest. Nature does +not write down her sunsets, her starry skies, her mountains, and her +oceans in some smaller style, to suit the comprehension of little +children; they do not need any such dilution. So I go back to the +"American First Class Book," and affirm it to have been one of the best +of reading-books, because it gave us children a taste of the finest +poetry and prose which had been written in our English tongue, by +British and by American authors. Among the pieces which left a +permanent impression upon my mind I recall Wirt's description of the +eloquent blind preacher to whom he listened in the forest wilderness of +the Blue Ridge, a remarkable word-portrait, in which the very tones of +the sightless speaker's voice seemed to be reproduced. I believe that +the first words I ever remembered of any sermon were those contained in +the grand, brief sentence,--"Socrates died like a philosopher; but +Jesus Christ--like a God!" + +Very vivid, too, is the recollection of the exquisite little prose idyl +of "Moss-Side," from "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life." From the +few short words with which it began--"Gilbert Ainslee was a poor man, +and he had been a poor man all the days of his life"--to the happy +waking of his little daughter Margaret out of her fever-sleep with +which it ended, it was one sweet picture of lowly life and honorable +poverty irradiated with sacred home-affections, and cheerful in its +rustic homeliness as the blossoms and wild birds of the moorland and +the magic touch of Christopher North could make it. I thought as I +read-- + +"How much pleasanter it must be to be poor than to be rich--at least in +Scotland!" + +For I was beginning to be made aware that poverty was a possible +visitation to our own household; and that, in our Cape Ann corner of +Massachusetts, we might find it neither comfortable nor picturesque. +After my father's death, our way of living, never luxurious, grew more +and more frugal. Now and then I heard mysterious allusions to "the wolf +at the door": and it was whispered that, to escape him, we might all +have to turn our backs upon the home where we were born, and find our +safety in the busy world, working among strangers for our daily bread. +Before I had reached my tenth year I began to have rather disturbed +dreams of what it might soon mean for me to "earn my own living." + + + +VII. + +BEGINNING TO WORK. + +A CHILD does not easily comprehend even the plain fact of death. Though +I had looked upon my father's still, pale face in his coffin, the +impression it left upon me was of sleep; more peaceful and sacred than +common slumber, yet only sleep. My dreams of him were for a long time +so vivid that I would say to myself, "He was here yesterday; he will be +here again to-morrow," with a feeling that amounted to expectation. + +We missed him, we children large and small who made up the yet +untrained home crew, as a ship misses the man at the helm. His grave, +clear perception of what was best for us, his brief words that decided, +once for all, the course we were to take, had been far more to us than +we knew. + +It was hardest of all for my mother, who had been accustomed to depend +entirely upon him. Left with her eight children, the eldest a boy of +eighteen years, and with no property except the roof that sheltered us +and a small strip of land, her situation was full of perplexities which +we little ones could not at all understand. To be fed like the ravens +and clothed like the grass of the field seemed to me, for one, a +perfectly natural thing, and I often wondered why my mother was so +fretted and anxious. + +I knew that she believed in God, and in the promises of the Bible, and +yet she seemed sometimes to forget everything but her troubles and her +helplessness. I felt almost like preaching to her, but I was too small +a child to do that, I well knew; so I did the next best thing I could +think of--I sang hymns as if singing to myself, while I meant them for +her. Sitting at the window with my book and my knitting, while she was +preparing dinner or supper with a depressed air because she missed the +abundant provision to which she held been accustomed, I would go from +hymn to hymn, selecting those which I thought would be most comforting +to her, out of the many that my memory-book contained, and taking care +to pronounce the words distinctly. + +I was glad to observe that she listened to + + "Come, ye disconsolate," + +and + + "How firm a foundation;" + +and that she grew more cheerful; though I did not feel sure that my +singing cheered her so much as some happier thought that had come to +her out of her own heart. Nobody but my mother, indeed, would have +called my chirping singing. But as she did not seem displeased, I went +on, a little more confidently, with some hymns that I loved for their +starry suggestions,-- + + "When marshaled on the nightly plain," + +and + + "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning," + +and + + "Watchman, tell us of the night?" + +The most beautiful picture in the Bible to me, certainly the loveliest +in the Old Testament, had always been that one painted by prophecy, of +the time when wild and tame creatures should live together in peace, +and children should be their fearless playmates. Even the savage wolf +Poverty would be pleasant and neighborly then, no doubt! A Little Child +among them, leading them, stood looking wistfully down through the soft +sunrise of that approaching day, into the cold and darkness of the +world. Oh, it would be so much better than the garden of Eden! + +Yes, and it would be a great deal better, I thought, to live in the +millennium, than even to die and go to heaven, although so many people +around me talked as if that were the most desirable thing of all. But I +could never understand why, if God sent us here, we should be in haste +to get away, even to go to a pleasanter place. + +I was perplexed by a good many matters besides. I had learned to keep +most of my thoughts to myself, but I did venture to ask about the +Ressurrection--how it was that those who had died and gone straight to +heaven, and had been singing there for thousands of years, could have +any use for the dust to which their bodies had returned. Were they not +already as alive as they could be? I found that there were different +ideas of the resurrection among "orthodox" people, even then. I was +told however, that this was too deep a matter for me, and so I ceased +asking questions. But I pondered the matter of death; what did it mean? +The Apostle Paul gave me more light on the subject than any of the +ministers did. And, as usual, a poem helped me. It was Pope's Ode, +beginning with,-- + + "Vital spark of heavenly flame,"-- + +which I learned out of a reading-book. To die was to "languish into +life." That was the meaning of it! and I loved to repeat to myself the +words,-- + + "Hark! they whisper: angels say, + 'Sister spirit, come away!'" + + "The world recedes; it disappears! + Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears + With sounds seraphic ring." + +A hymn that I learned a little later expressed to me the same +satisfying thought: + + "For strangers into life we come, + And dying is but going home." + +The Apostle's words, with which the song of "The Dying Christian to his +Soul" ends, left the whole cloudy question lit up with sunshine, to my +childish thoughts:-- + + "O grave, where is thy 'victory? + O death, where is thy sting?" + +My father was dead; but that only meant that he had gone to a better +home than the one be lived in with us, and by and by we should go home, +too. + +Meanwhile the millennium was coming, and some people thought it was +very near. And what was the millennium? Why, the time when everybody on +earth would live just as they do in heaven. Nobody would be selfish, +nobody would be unkind; no! not so much as in a single thought. What a +delightful world this would be to live in then! Heaven itself could +scarcely be much better! Perhaps people would not die at all, but, when +the right time came, would slip quietly away into heaven, just as Enoch +did. + +My father had believed in the near millennium. His very last writing, +in his sick-room, was a penciled computation, from the prophets, of the +time when it would begin. The first minister who preached in our +church, long before I was born, had studied the subject much, and had +written books upon this, his favorite theme. The thought of it was +continually breaking out, like bloom and sunshine, from the stern +doctrines of the period. + +One question in this connection puzzled me a good deal. Were people +going to be made good in spite of themselves, whether they wanted to or +not? And what would be done with the bad ones, if there were any left? +I did not like to think of their being killed off, and yet everybody +must be good, or it would not be a true millennium. + +It certainly would not matter much who was rich, and who was poor, if +goodness, and not money, was the thing everybody cared for. Oh, if the +millennium would only begin now! I felt as if it were hardly fair to me +that I should not be here during those happy thousand years, when I +wanted to so much. But I had not lived even my short life in the world +without leading something of my own faults and perversities; and when I +saw that there was no sign of an approaching millennium in my heart I +had to conclude that it might be a great way off, after all. Yet the +very thought of it brought warmth and illumination to my dreams by day +and by night. It was coming, some time! And the people who were in +heaven would be as glad of it as those who remained on earth. + +That it was a hard world for my mother and her children to live in at +present I could not help seeing. The older members of the family found +occupations by which the domestic burdens were lifted a little; but, +with only the three youngest to clothe and to keep at school, there was +still much more outgo than income, and my mother's discouragement every +day increased. + +My eldest brother had gone to sea with a relative who was master of a +merchant vessel in the South American trade. His inclination led him +that way; it seemed to open before him a prospect of profitable +business, and my mother looked upon him as her future stay and support. + +One day she came in among us children looking strangely excited. I +heard her tell some one afterwards that she had just been to hear +Father Taylor preach, the sailors minister, whose coming to our town +must have been a rare occurrence. His words had touched her personally, +for he had spoken to mothers whose first-born had left them to venture +upon strange seas and to seek unknown lands. He had even given to the +wanderer he described the name of her own absent son--"Benjamin." As +she left the church she met a neighbor who informed her that the brig +"Mexican" had arrived at Salem, in trouble. It was the vessel in which +my brother had sailed only a short time before, expecting to be absent +for months. "Pirates" was the only word we children caught, as she +hastened away from the house, not knowing whether her son was alive or +not. Fortunately, the news hardly reached the town before my brother +himself did. She met him in the street, and brought him home with her, +forgetting all her anxieties in her joy at his safety. + +The "Mexican" had been attacked on the high seas by the piratical craft +"Panda," robbed of twenty thousand dollars in specie, set on fire, and +abandoned to her fate, with the crew fastened down in the hold. One +small skylight had accidentally been overlooked by the freebooters. The +captain discovered it, and making his way through it to the deck, +succeeded in putting out the fire, else vessel and sailors would have +sunk together, and their fate would never have been known. + +Breathlessly we listened whenever my brother would relate the story, +which he did not at all enjoy doing, for a cutlass had been swung over +his head, and his life threatened by the pirate's boatswain, demanding +more money, after all had been taken. A Genoese messmate, Iachimo, +shortened to plain "Jack" by the "Mexican's" crew, came to see my +brother one day, and at the dinner table he went through the whole +adventure in pantomime, which we children watched with wide-eyed terror +and amusement. For there was some comedy mixed with what had been so +nearly a tragedy, and Jack made us see the very whites of the black +cook's eyes, who, favored by his color, had hidden himself--all except +that dilated whiteness--between two great casks in the bold. Jack +himself had fallen through a trap-door, was badly hurt, and could not +extricate himself. + +It was very ludicrous. Jack crept under the table to show us how he and +the cook made eyes at each other down there in the darkness, not daring +to speak. The pantomime was necessary, for the Genoese had very little +English at his command. + +When the pirate crew were brought into Salem for trial, my brother had +the questionable satisfaction of identifying in the court-room the +ruffian of a boatswain who had threatened his life. This boatswain and +several others of the crew were executed in Boston. The boy found his +brief sailor-experience quite enough for him, and afterward settled +down quietly to the trade of a carpenter. + +Changes thickened in the air around us. Not the least among them was +the burning of "our meeting-house," in which we had all been baptized. +One Sunday morning we children were told, when we woke, that we could +not go to meeting that day, because the church was a heap of smoking +ruins. It seemed to me almost like the end of the world. + +During my father's life, a few years before my birth, his thoughts had +been turned towards the new manufacturing town growing up on the banks +of the Merrimack. He had once taken a journey there, with the +possibility in his mind of making the place his home, his limited +income furnishing no adequate promise of a maintenance for his large +family of daughters. From the beginning, Lowell had a high reputation +for good order, morality, piety, and all that was dear to the +old-fashioned New Englander's heart. + +After his death, my mother's thoughts naturally followed the direction +his had taken; and seeing no other opening for herself, she sold her +small estate, and moved to Lowell, with the intention of taking a +corporation-house for mill-girl boarders. Some of the family objected, +for the Old World traditions about factory life were anything but +attractive; and they were current in New England until the experiment +at Lowell had shown that independent and intelligent workers invariably +give their own character to their occupation. My mother had visited +Lowell, and she was willing and glad, knowing all about the place, to +make it our home. + +The change involved a great deal of work. "Boarders" signified a large +house, many beds, and an indefinite number of people. Such piles of +sewing accumulated before us! A sewing-bee, volunteered by the +neighbors, reduced the quantity a little, and our child-fingers had to +take their part. But the seams of those sheets did look to me as if +they were miles long! + +My sister Lida and I had our "stint,"--so much to do every day. It was +warm weather, and that made it the more tedious, for we wanted to be +running about the fields we were so soon to leave. One day, in sheer +desperation, we dragged a sheet up with us into an apple-tree in the +yard, and sat and sewed there through the summer afternoon, beguiling +the irksomeness of our task by telling stories and guessing riddles. + +It was hardest for me to leave the garret and the garden. In the old +houses the garret was the children's castle. The rough rafters,--it was +always ail unfinished room, otherwise not a true garret,--the music of +the rain on the roof, the worn sea-chests with their miscellaneous +treasures, the blue-roofed cradle that had sheltered ten blue-eyed +babies, the tape-looms and reels and spinning wheels, the herby smells, +and the delightful dream corners,--these could not be taken with us to +the new home. Wonderful people had looked out upon us from under those +garret-eaves. Sindbad the Sailor and Baron Munchausen had sometimes +strayed in and told us their unbelievable stories; and we had there +made acquaintance with the great Caliph Haroun Alraschid. + +To go away from the little garden was almost as bad. Its lilacs and +peonies were beautiful to me, and in a corner of it was one tiny square +of earth that I called my own, where I was at liberty to pull up my +pinks and lady's delights every day, to see whether they had taken +root, and where I could give my lazy morning-glory seeds a poke, +morning after morning, to help them get up and begin their climb. Oh, I +should miss the garden very much indeed! + +It did not take long to turn over the new leaf of our home experience. +One sunny day three of us children, my youngest sister, my brother +John, and I, took with my mother the first stage-coach journey of our +lives, across Lynnfield plains and over Andover hills to the banks of +the Merrimack. We were set down before an empty house in a yet +unfinished brick block, where we watched for the big wagon that was to +bring our household goods. + +It came at last; and the novelty of seeing our old furniture settled in +new rooms kept us from being homesick. One after another they +appeared,--bedsteads, chairs, tables, and, to me most welcome of all, +the old mahogany secretary with brass-handled drawers, that had always +stood in the "front room" at home. With it came the barrel full of +books that had filled its shelves, and they took their places as +naturally as if they had always lived in this strange town. + +There they all stood again side by side on their shelves, the dear, +dull, good old volumes that all my life I had tried in vain to take a +sincere Sabbath-day interest in,--Scott's Commentaries on the Bible, +Hervey's "Meditations," Young's "Night Thoughts," "Edwards on the +Affections," and the Writings of Baxter and Doddridge. Besides these, +there were bound volumes of the "Repository Tracts," which I had read +and re-read; and the delightfully miscellaneous "Evangelicana," +containing an account of Gilbert Tennent's wonderful trance; also the +"History of the Spanish Inquisition," with some painfully realistic +illustrations; a German Dictionary, whose outlandish letters and words +I liked to puzzle myself over; and a descriptive History of Hamburg, +full of fine steel engravings--which last two or three volumes my +father had brought with him from the countries to which he had sailed +in his sea-faring days. A complete set of the "Missionary Herald", +unbound, filled the upper shelves. + +Other familiar articles journeyed with us: the brass-headed shovel and +tongs, that it had been my especial task to keep bright; the two +card-tables (which were as unacquainted as ourselves with ace, face, +and trump); the two china mugs, with their eighteenth-century lady and +gentleman figurines curiosities brought from over the sea, and +reverently laid away by my mother with her choicest relics in the +secretary-desk; my father's miniature, painted in Antwerp, a treasure +only shown occasionally to us children as a holiday treat; and my +mother's easy-chair,--I should have felt as if I had lost her, had that +been left behind. The earliest unexpressed ambition of my infancy had +been to grow up and wear a cap, and sit in an easy-chair knitting and +look comfortable just as my mother did. + +Filled up with these things, the little one-windowed sitting-room +easily caught the home feeling, and gave it back to us. Inanimate +Objects do gather into themselves something of the character of those +who live among them, through association; and this alone makes +heirlooms valuable. They are family treasures, because they are part of +the family life, full of memories and inspirations. Bought or sold, +they are nothing but old furniture. Nobody can buy the old +associations; and nobody who has really felt how everything that has +been in a home makes part of it, can willingly bargain away the old +things. + +My mother never thought of disposing of her best furniture, whatever +her need. It traveled with her in every change of her abiding-place, as +long as she lived, so that to us children home seemed to accompany her +wherever she went. And, remaining yet in the family, it often brings +back to me pleasant reminders of my childhood. No other Bible seems +quite so sacred to me as the old Family Bible, out of which my father +used to read when we were all gathered around him for worship. To turn +its leaves and look at its pictures was one of our few Sabbath-day +indulgences; and I cannot touch it now except with feelings of profound +reverence. + +For the first time in our lives, my little sister and I became pupils +in a grammar school for both girls and boys, taught by a man. I was put +with her into the sixth class, but was sent the very next day into the +first. I did not belong in either, but somewhere between. And I was +very uncomfortable in my promotion, for though the reading and spelling +and grammar and geography were perfectly easy, I had never studied any +thing but mental arithmetic, and did not know how to "do a sum." We had +to show, when called up to recite, a slateful of sums, "done" and +"proved." No explanations were ever asked of us. + +The girl who sat next to me saw my distress, and offered to do my sums +for me. I accepted her proposal, feeling, however, that I was a +miserable cheat. But I was afraid of the master, who was tall and +gaunt, and used to stalk across the schoolroom, right over the +desk-tops, to find out if there was any mischief going on. Once, having +caught a boy annoying a seat-mate with a pin, he punished the offender +by pursuing him around the schoolroom, sticking a pin into his shoulder +whenever he could overtake him. And he had a fearful leather strap, +which was sometimes used even upon the shrinking palm of a little girl. +If he should find out that I was a pretender and deceiver, as I knew +that I was, I could not guess what might happen to me. He never did, +however. I was left unmolested in the ignorance which I deserved. But I +never liked the girl who did my sums, and I fancied she had a decided +contempt for me. + +There was a friendly looking boy always sitting at the master's desk; +they called him "the monitor." It was his place to assist scholars who +were in trouble about their lessons, but I was too bashful to speak to +him, or to ask assistance of anybody. I think that nobody learned much +under that regime, and the whole school system was soon after entirely +reorganized. + +Our house was quickly filled with a large feminine family. As a child, +the gulf between little girlhood and young womanhood had always looked +to me very wide. I suppose we should get across it by some sudden jump, +by and by. But among these new companions of all ages, from fifteen to +thirty years, we slipped into womanhood without knowing when or how. + +Most of my mother's boarders were from New Hampshire and Vermont, and +there was a fresh, breezy sociability about them which made them seem +almost like a different race of beings from any we children had +hitherto known. + +We helped a little about the housework, before and after school, making +beds, trimming lamps, and washing dishes. The heaviest work was done by +a strong Irish girl, my mother always attending to the cooking herself. +She was, however, a better caterer than the circumstances required or +permitted. She liked to make nice things for the table, and, having +been accustomed to an abundant supply, could never learn to economize. +At a dollar and a quarter a week for board,(the price allowed for +mill-girls by the corporations) great care in expenditure was +necessary. It was not in my mother's nature closely to calculate costs, +and in this way there came to be a continually increasing leak in the +family purse. The older members of the family did everything they +could, but it was not enough. I heard it said one day, in a distressed +tone, "The children will have to leave school and go into the mill." + +There were many pros and cons between my mother and sisters before this +was positively decided. The mill-agent did not want to take us two +little girls, but consented on condition we should be sure to attend +school the full number of months prescribed each year. I, the younger +one, was then between eleven and twelve years old. + +I listened to all that was said about it, very much fearing that I +should not be permitted to do the coveted work. For the feeling had +already frequently come to me, that I was the one too many in the +overcrowded family nest. Once, before we left our old home, I had heard +a neighbor condoling with my mother because there were so many of us, +and her emphatic reply had been a great relief to my mind:-- + +"There is isn't one more than I want. I could not spare a single one of +my children." + +But her difficulties were increasing, and I thought it would be a +pleasure to feel that I was not a trouble or burden or expense to +anybody. So I went to my first day's work in the mill with a light +heart. The novelty of it made it seem easy, and it really was not hard, +just to change the bobbins on the spinning-frames every three quarters +of an hour or so, with half a dozen other little girls who were doing +the same thing. When I came back at night, the family began to pity me +for my long, tiresome day's work, but I laughed and said,-- + +"Why, it is nothing but fun. It is just like play." + +And for a little while it was only a new amusement; I liked it better +than going to school and "making believe" I was learning when I was +not. And there was a great deal of play mixed with it. We were not +occupied more than half the time. The intervals were spent frolicking +around around the spinning-frames, teasing and talking to the older +girls, or entertaining ourselves with the games and stories in a +corner, or exploring with the overseer's permission, the mysteries of +the the carding-room, the dressing-room and the weaving-room. + +I never cared much for machinery. The buzzing and hissing and whizzing +of pulleys and rollers and spindles and flyers around me often grew +tiresome. I could not see into their complications, or feel interested +in them. But in a room below us we were sometimes allowed to peer in +through a sort of blind door at the great water-wheel that carried the +works of the whole mill. It was so huge that we could only watch a few +of its spokes at a time, and part of its dripping rim, moving with a +slow, measured strength through the darkness that shut it in. It +impressed me with something of the awe which comes to us in thinking of +the great Power which keeps the mechanism of the universe in motion. +Even now, the remembrance of its large, mysterious movement, in which +every little motion of every noisy little wheel was involved, brings +back to me a verse from one of my favorite hymns:-- + + "Our lives through various scenes are drawn, + And vexed by trifling cares, + While Thine eternal thought moves on + Thy undisturbed affairs." + +There were compensations for being shut in to daily toil so early. The +mill itself had its lessons for us. But it was not, and could not be, +the right sort of life for a child, and we were happy in the knowledge +that, at the longest, our employment was only to be temporary. + +When I took my next three months at the grammar school, everything +there was changed, and I too was changed. The teachers were kind, and +thorough in their instruction; and my mind seemed to have been ploughed +up during that year of work, so that knowledge took root in it easily. +It was a great delight to me to study, and at the end of the three +months the master told me that I was prepared for the high school. + +But alas! I could not go. The little money I could earn--one dollar a +week, besides the price of my board--was needed in the family, and I +must return to the mill. It was a severe disappointment to me, though I +did not say so at home. I did not at all accept the conclusion of a +neighbor whom I heard talking about it with my mother. His daughter was +going to the high school, and my mother was telling him how sorry she +was that I could not. + +"Oh," he said, in a soothing tone, "my girl hasn't got any such +head-piece as yours has. Your girl doesn't need to go." + +Of course I knew that whatever sort of a "head-piece" I had, I did need +and want just that very opportunity to study. I think the solution was +then formed, inwardly, that I would go to school again, some time, +whatever happened. I went back to my work, but now without enthusiasm. +I had looked through an open door that I was not willing to see shut +upon me. + +I began to reflect upon life rather seriously for a girl of twelve or +thirteen. What was I here for? What could I make of myself? Must I +submit to be carried along with the current, and do just what everybody +else did? No: I knew I should not do that, for there was a certain +Myself who was always starting up with her own original plan or +aspiration before me, and who was quite indifferent as to what people, +generally thought. + +Well, I would find out what this Myself was good for, and that she +should be! It was but the presumption of extreme youth. How gladly +would I know now, after these long years, just why I was sent into the +world, and whether I have in any degree fulfilled the purpose of my +being! + +In the older times it was seldom said to little girls, as it always has +been said to boys, that they ought to have some definite plan, while +they were children, what to be and do when they were grown up. There +was usually but one path open before them, to become good wives and +housekeepers. And the ambition of most girls was to follow their +mothers' footsteps in this direction; a natural and laudable ambition. +But girls, as well as boys, must often have been conscious of their own +peculiar capabilities,--must have desired to cultivate and make use of +their individual powers. When I was growing up, they had already begun +to be encouraged to do so. We were often told that it was our duty to +develop any talent we might possess, or at least to learn how to do +some one thing which the world needed, or which would make it a +pleasanter world. + +When I thought what I should best like to do, my first dream--almost a +baby's dream--about it was that it would be a fine thing to be a +schoolteacher, like Aunt Hannah. Afterward, when I heard that there +were artists, I wished I could some time be one. A slate and pencil, to +draw pictures, was my first request whenever a day's ailment kept me at +home from school; and I rather enjoyed being a little ill, for the sake +of amusing myself in that way. The wish grew up with me; but there were +no good drawing-teachers in those days, and if there had been, the cost +of instruction would have been beyond the family means. My sister +Emilie, however, who saw my taste and shared it herself, did her best +to assist me, furnishing me with pencil and paper and paint-box. + +If I could only make a rose bloom on paper, I thought I should be +happy! or if I could at last succeed in drawing the outline of +winter-stripped boughs as I saw them against the sky, it seemed to me +that I should be willing to spend years in trying. I did try a little, +and very often. Jack Frost was my most inspiring teacher. His sketches +on the bedroom window-pane in cold mornings were my ideal studies of +Swiss scenery, crags and peaks and chalets and fir-trees,--and graceful +tracery of ferns, like those that grew in the woods where we went +huckleberrying, all blended together by his touch of enchantment. I +wondered whether human fingers ever succeeded in imitating that lovely +work. + +The taste has followed me all my life through, but I could never +indulge it except as a recreation. I was not to be an artist, and I am +rather glad that I was hindered, for I had even stronger inclinations +in other directions; and art, really noble art, requires the entire +devotion of a lifetime. + +I seldom thought seriously of becoming an author, although it seemed to +me that anybody who had written a book would have a right to feel very +proud. But I believed that a person must be exceedingly wise before +presuming to attempt it: although now and then I thought I could feel +ideas growing in my mind that it might be worth while to put into a +book,--if I lived and studied until I was forty or fifty years old. + +I wrote my little verses, to be sure, but that was nothing; they just +grew. They were the same as breathing or singing. I could not help +writing them, and I thought and dreamed a great many that were ever put +on paper. They seemed to fly into my mind and away again, like birds +with a carol through the air. It seemed strange to me that people +should notice them, or should think my writing verses anything +peculiar; for I supposed that they were in everybody's mind, just as +they were in mine, and that anybody could write them who chose. + +One day I heard a relative say to my mother,-- + +"Keep what she writes till she grows up, and perhaps she will get money +for it. I have heard of somebody who earned a thousand dollars by +writing poetry." + +It sounded so absurd to me. Money for writing verses! One dollar would +be as ridiculous as a thousand. I should as soon have thought of being +paid for thinking! My mother, fortunately, was sensible enough never +to flatter me or let me be flattered about my scribbling. It never was +allowed to hinder any work I had to do. I crept away into a corner to +write what came into my head, just as I ran away to play; and I looked +upon it only as my most agreeable amusement, never thinking of +preserving anything which did not of itself stay in my memory. This too +was well, for the time did lot come when I could afford to look upon +verse-writing as an occupation. Through my life, it has only been +permitted to me as an aside from other more pressing employments. +Whether I should have written better verses had circumstances left me +free to do what I chose, it is impossible now to know. + +All my thoughts about my future sent me back to Aunt Hannah and my +first infantile idea of being a teacher. I foresaw that I should be +that before I could be or do any thing else. It had been impressed upon +me that I must make myself useful in the world, and certainly one could +be useful who could "keep school" as Aunt Hannah did. I did not see +anything else for a girl to do who wanted to use her brains as well as +her hands. So the plan of preparing myself to be a teacher gradually +and almost unconsciously shaped itself in my mind as the only +practicable one. I could earn my living in that way,--all-important +consideration. + +I liked the thought of self-support, but I would have chosen some +artistic or beautiful work if I could. I had no especial aptitude for +teaching, and no absorbing wish to be a teacher, but it seemed to me +that I might succeed if I tried. What I did like about it was that one +must know something first. I must acquire knowledge before I could +impart it, and that was just what I wanted. I could be a student, +wherever I was and whatever else I had to be or do, and I would! + +I knew I should write; I could not help doing that, for my hand seemed +instinctively to move towards pen and paper in moments of leisure. But +to write anything worth while, I must have mental cultivation; so, in +preparing myself to teach, I could also be preparing myself to write. + +This was the plan that indefinitely shaped itself in my mind as I +returned to my work in the spinning-room, and which I followed out, not +without many breaks and hindrances and neglects, during the next six or +seven years,--to learn all I could, so that I should be fit to teach or +to write, as the way opened. And it turned out that fifteen or twenty +of my best years were given to teaching. + + + +VIII. + +BY THE RIVER. + +IT did not take us younger ones long to get acquainted with our new +home, and to love it. + +To live beside a river had been to me a child's dream of romance. +Rivers, as I pictured them, came down from the mountains, and were born +in the clouds. They were bordered by green meadows, and graceful trees +leaned over to gaze into their bright mirrors. Our shallow tidal creek +was the only river I had known, except as visioned on the pages of the +"Pilgrim's Progress," and in the Book of Revelation. And the Merrimack +was like a continuation of that dream. + +I soon made myself familiar with the rocky nooks along Pawtucket Falls, +shaded with hemlocks and white birches. Strange new wild flowers grew +beside the rushing waters,--among them Sir Walter Scott's own +harebells, which I had never thought of except as blossoms of poetry; +here they were, as real to me as to his Lady of the Lake! I loved the +harebell, the first new flower the river gave me, as I had never loved +a flower before. + +There was but one summers holiday for us who worked in the mills--the +Fourth of July. We made a point of spending it out of doors, making +excursions down the river to watch the meeting of the slow Concord and +the swift Merrimack; or around by the old canal-path, to explore the +mysteries of the Guard Locks; or across the bridge, clambering up +Dracut Heights, to look away to the dim blue mountains. + +On that morning it was our custom to wake one another at four o'clock, +and start off on a tramp together over some retired road whose chief +charm was its unfamiliarity, returning to a very late breakfast, with +draggled gowns and aprons full of dewy wild roses. No matter if we must +get up at five the next morning and go back to our hum-drum toil, we +should have the roses to take with us for company, and the sweet air of +the woodland which lingered about them would scent our thoughts all +day, and make us forget the oily smell of the machinery. + +We were children still, whether at school or at work, and Nature still +held us close to her motherly heart. Nature came very close to the +mill-gates, too, in those days. There was green grass all around them; +violets and wild geraniums grew by the canals; and long stretches of +open land between the corporation buildings and the street made the +town seem country-like. + +The slope behind our mills (the "Lawrence" Mills) was a green lawn; and +in front of some of them the overseers had gay flower-gardens; we +passed in to our work through a splendor of dahlias and hollyhocks. + +The gray stone walls of St. Anne's church and rectory made a +picturesque spot in the middle of the town, remaining still as a +lasting monument to the religious purpose which animated the first +manufacturers. The church arose close to the oldest corporation (the +"Merrimack"), and seemed a part of it, and a part, also, of the +original idea of the place itself, which was always a city of +worshipers, although it came to be filled with a population which +preferred meeting-houses to churches. I admired the church greatly. I +had never before seen a real one; never anything but a plain frame +meeting-house; and it and its benign, apostolic-looking rector were +like a leaf out of an English story-book. + +And so, also, was the tiny white cottage nearly opposite, set in the +middle of a pretty flower-garden that sloped down to the canal. In the +garden there was almost always a sweet little girl in a pink gown and +white sunbonnet gathering flowers when I passed that way, and I often +went out of my path to do so. These relieved the monotony of the +shanty-like shops which bordered the main street. The town had sprung +up with a mushroom-rapidity, and there was no attempt at veiling the +newness of its bricks and mortar, its boards and paint. + +But there were buildings that had their own individuality, and asserted +it. One of these was a mud-cabin with a thatched roof, that looked as +if it had emigrated bodily from the bogs of Ireland. It had settled +itself down into a green hollow by the roadside, and it looked as much +at home with the lilac-tinted crane's-bill and yellow buttercups as if +it had never lost sight of the shamrocks of Erin. + +Now, too, my childish desire to see a real beggar was gratified. +Straggling petitioners for "cold victuals" hung around our back yard, +always of Hibernian extraction; and a slice of bread was rewarded with +a shower of benedictions that lost itself upon us in the flood of its +own incomprehensible brogue. + +Some time every summer a fleet of canoes would glide noiselessly up the +river, and a company of Penobscot Indians would land at a green point +almost in sight from our windows. Pawtucket Falls had always been one +of their favorite camping-places. Their strange endeavors, to combine +civilization with savagery were a great source of amusement to us; men +and women clad alike in loose gowns, stove-pipe hats, and moccasons; +grotesque relies of aboriginal forest-life. The sight of these +uncouth-looking red men made the romance fade entirely out of the +Indian stories we had heard. Still their wigwam camp was a show we +would not willingly have missed. + +The transition from childhood to girlhood, when a little girl has had +an almost unlimited freedom of out-of-door life, is practically the +toning down of a mild sort of barbarianism, and is often attended by a +painfully awkward self-consciousness. I had an innate dislike of +conventionalities. I clung to the child's inalienable privilege of +running half wild; and when I found that I really was growing up, I +felt quite rebellious. + +I was as tall as a woman at thirteen, and my older sisters insisted +upon lengthening my dresses, and putting up my mop of hair with a comb. +I felt injured and almost outraged because my protestations against +this treatment were unheeded and when the transformation in my visible +appearance was effected, I went away by myself and had a good cry, +which I would not for the world have had them know about, as that would +have added humiliation to my distress. And the greatest pity about it +was that I too soon became accustomed to the situation. I felt like a +child, but considered it my duty to think and behave like a woman. I +began to look upon it as a very serious thing to live. The untried +burden seemed already to have touched my shoulders. For a time I was +morbidly self-critical, and at the same time extremely reserved. The +associates I chose were usually grave young women, ten or fifteen years +older than myself; but I think I felt older and appeared older than +they did. + +Childhood, however, is not easily defrauded of its birthright, and mine +soon reasserted itself. At home I was among children of my own age, for +some cousins and other acquaintances had come to live and work with us. +We had our evening frolics and entertainments together, and we always +made the most of our brief holiday hours. We had also with us now the +sister Emilie of my fairy-tale memories, who had grown into a strong, +earnest-hearted woman. We all looked up to her as our model, and the +ideal of our heroine-worship; for our deference to her in every way did +amount to that. + +She watched over us, gave us needed reproof and commendation, rarely +cosseted us, but rather made us laugh at what many would have +considered the hardships of our lot. She taught us not only to accept +the circumstances in which we found ourselves, but to win from them +courage and strength. When we came in shivering from our work, through +a snowstorm, complaining of numb hands and feet, she would say +cheerily, "But it doesn't make you any warmer to say you are cold;" and +this was typical of the way she took life generally, and tried to have +us take it. She was constantly denying herself for our sakes, without +making us feel that she was doing so. But she did not let us get into +the bad habit of pitying ourselves because we were not as "well off" as +many other children. And indeed we considered ourselves pleasantly +situated; but the best of it all was that we had her. + +Her theories for herself, and her practice, too, were rather severe; +but we tried to follow them, according to our weaker abilities. Her +custom was, for instance, to take a full cold bath every morning before +she went to her work, even though the water was chiefly broken ice; and +we did the same whenever we could be resolute enough. It required both +nerve and will to do this at five o'clock on a zero morning, in a room +without a fire; but it helped us to harden ourselves, while we formed a +good habit. The working-day in winter began at the very earliest +daylight, and ended at half-past seven in the evening. + +Another habit of hers was to keep always beside her at her daily work +something to study or to think about. At first it was "Watts on the +Improvement of the Mind," arranged as a textbook, with questions and +answers, by the minister of Beverly who had made the thought of the +millennium such a reality to his people. She quite wore this book out, +carrying it about with her in her working-dress pocket. After that, +"Locke on the Understanding" was used in the same way. She must have +known both books through and through by heart. Then she read Combe and +Abercrombie, and discussed their physics and metaphysics with our girl +boarders, some of whom had remarkably acute and well-balanced minds. +Her own seemed to have turned from its early bent toward the romantic, +her taste being now for serious and practical, though sometimes +abstruse, themes. I remember that Young and Pollock were her favorite +poets. + +I could not keep up with her in her studies and readings, for many of +the books she liked seemed to me very dry. I did not easily take to the +argumentative or moralizing method, which I came to regard as a proof +of the weakness of my own intellect in comparison with hers. I would +gladly have kept pace with her if I could. Anything under the heading +of "Didactick," like some of the pieces in the old "English Reader," +used by school-children in the generation just before ours, always +repelled me. But I though it necessary to discipline myself by reading +such pieces, and my first attempt at prose composition, "On +Friendship," was stiffly modeled after a certain "Didactick Essay" in +that same English Reader. + +My sister, however, cared more to watch the natural development of our +minds than to make us follow the direction of hers. She was really our +teacher, although she never assumed that position. Certainly I learned +more from her about my own capabilities, and how I might put them to +use, than I could have done at any school we knew of, had it been +possible for me to attend one. + +I think she was determined that we should not be mentally defrauded by +the circumstances which had made it necessary for us to begin so early +to win our daily bread. This remark applies especially to me, as my +older sisters (only two or three of them had come to Lowell) soon +drifted away from us into their own new homes or occupations, and she +and I were left together amid the whir of spindles and wheels. + +One thing she planned for us, her younger housemates,--a dozen or so of +cousins, friends, and sisters, some attending school, and some at work +in the mill,--was a little fortnightly paper, to be filled with our +original contributions, she herself acting as editor. + +I do not know where she got the idea, unless it was from Mrs. Lydia +Maria Child's "Juvenile Miscellany," which had found its way to us some +years before,--a most delightful guest, and, I think, the first +magazine prepared for American children, who have had so many since +then.(I have always been glad that I knew that sweet woman with the +child's heart and the poet's soul, in her later years, and could tell +her how happy she had helped to make my childhood.) Our little sheet +was called "The Diving Bell," probably from the sea-associations of the +name. We kept our secrets of authorship very close from everybody +except the editor, who had to decipher the handwriting and copy the +pieces. It was, indeed, an important part of the fun to guess who wrote +particular pieces. After a little while, however, our mannerisms +betrayed us. One of my cousins was known to be the chief story-teller, +and I was recognized as the leading rhymer among the younger +contributors; the editor-sister excelling in her versifying, as she did +in almost everything. + +It was a cluster of very conscious-looking little girls that assembled +one evening in the attic room, chosen on account of its remoteness from +intruders (for we did not admit even the family as a public, the +writers themselves were the only audience), to listen to the reading of +our first paper. We took Saturday evening, because that was longer than +the other workday evenings, the mills being closed earlier. Such +guessing and wondering and admiring as we had! But nobody would +acknowledge her own work, for that would have spoiled the pleasure. +Only there were certain wise hints and maxims that we knew never came +from any juvenile head among us, and those we set down as "editorials." + +Some of the stories contained rather remarkable incidents. One, written +to illustrate a little girl's habit of carelessness about her own +special belongings, told of her rising one morning, and after hunting +around for her shoes half an hour or so, finding them in the book-case, +where she had accidentally locked them up the night before! + +To convince myself that I could write something besides rhymes, I had +attempted an essay of half a column on a very extensive subject, +"MIND." It began loftily:-- + +"What a noble and beautiful thing is mind!" and it went on in the same +high-flown strain to no particular end. But the editor praised it, +after having declined the verdict of the audience that she was its +author; and I felt sufficiently flattered by both judgments. + +I wrote more rhymes than anything else, because they came more easily. +But I always felt that the ability to write good prose was far more +desirable, and it seems so to me still. I will give my little girl +readers a single specimen of my twelve-year-old "Diving Bell" verses, +though I feel as if I ought to apologize even for that. It is on a +common subject, "Life like a Rose":-- + + "Childhood's like a tender bud + That's scarce been formed an hour, + But which erelong will doubtless be + A bright and lovely flower. + + "And youth is like a full-blown rose + Which has not known decay; + But which must soon, alas! too soon! + Wither and fade away. + + "And age is like a withered rose, + That bends beneath the blast; + But though its beauty all is gone, + Its fragrance yet may last." + +This, and other verses that I wrote then, serve to illustrate the +child's usual inclination to look forward meditatively, rather than to +think and write of the simple things that belong to children. + +Our small venture set some of us imagining what larger possibilities +might be before us in the far future. We talked over the things we +should like to do when we should be women out in the active world; and +the author of the shoe-story horrified us by declaring that she meant +to be distinguished when she grew up for something, even if it was for +something bad! She did go so far in a bad way as to plagiarize a long +poem in a subsequent number of the "Diving Bell" but the editor found +her out, and we all thought that a reproof from Emilie was sufficient +punishment. + +I do not know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate for me that I had +not, by nature, what is called literary ambition. I knew that I had a +knack at rhyming, and I knew that I enjoyed nothing better than to try +to put thoughts and words together, in any way. But I did it for the +pleasure of rhyming and writing, indifferent as to what might come of +it. For any one who could take hold of every-day, practical work, and +carry it on successfully, I had a profound respect. To be what is +called "capable" seemed to me better worth while than merely to have a +taste or for writing, perhaps because I was conscious of my +deficiencies in the former respect. But certainly the world needs deeds +more than it needs words. I should never have been willing to be only a +writer, without using my hands to some good purpose besides. + +My sister, however, told me that here was a talent which I had no right +to neglect, and which I ought to make the most of. I believed in her; I +thought she understood me better than I understood myself; and it was a +comfort to be assured that my scribbling was not wholly a waste of +time. So I used pencil and paper in every spare minute I could find. +Our little home-journal went bravely on through twelve numbers. Its +yellow manuscript pages occasionally meet my eyes when I am rummaging +among my old papers, with the half-conscious look of a waif that knows +it has no right to its escape from the waters of oblivion. + +While it was in progress my sister Emilie became acquainted with a +family of bright girls, near neighbors of ours, who proposed that we +should join with them, and form a little society for writing and +discussion, to meet fortnightly at their house. We met,--I think I was +the youngest of the group,--prepared a Constitution and By-Laws, and +named ourselves "The Improvement Circle." If I remember rightly, my +sister was our first president. The older ones talked and wrote on many +subjects quite above me. I was shrinkingly bashful, as half-grown girls +usually are, but I wrote my little essays and read them, and listened +to the rest, and enjoyed it all exceedingly. Out of this little +"Improvement Circle" grew the larger one whence issued the "Lowell +Offering," a year or two later. + +At this time I had learned to do a spinner's work, and I obtained +permission to tend some frames that stood directly in front of the +river-windows, with only them and the wall behind me, extending half +the length of the mill,--and one young woman beside me, at the farther +end of the row. She was a sober, mature person, who scarcely thought it +worth her while to speak often to a child like me; and I was, when with +strangers, rather a reserved girl; so I kept myself occupied with the +river, my work, and my thoughts. And the river and my thoughts flowed +on together, the happiest of companions. Like a loitering pilgrim, it +sparkled up to me in recognition as it glided along and bore away my +little frets and fatigues on its bosom. When the work "went well," I +sat in the window-seat, and let my fancies fly whither they +would,--downward to the sea, or upward to the hills that hid the +mountain-cradle of the Merrimack. + +The printed regulations forbade us to bring books into the mill, so I +made my window-seat into a small library of poetry, pasting its side +all over with newspaper clippings. In those days we had only weekly +papers, and they had always a "poet's corner," where standard writers +were well represented, with anonymous ones, also. I was not, of course, +much of a critic. I chose my verses for their sentiment, and because I +wanted to commit them to memory; sometimes it was a long poem, +sometimes a hymn, sometimes only a stray verse. Mrs. Hemans sang with +me,-- + + "Far away, o'er the blue hills far away;" + +and I learned and loved her "Better Land," and + + "If thou hast crushed a flower," + +and "Kindred Hearts." + +I wonder if Miss Landon really did write that fine poem to Mont Blanc +which was printed in her volume, but which sounds so entirely unlike +everything else she wrote! This was one of my window-gems. It ended +with the appeal,-- + + "Alas for thy past mystery! + For thine untrodden snow! + Nurse of the tempest! hast thou none + To guard thine outraged brow?" + +and it contained a stanza that I often now repeat to myself:-- + + "We know too much: scroll after scroll + Weighs down our weary shelves: + Our only point of ignorance + Is centred in ourselves." + +There was one anonymous waif in my collection that I was very fond of. +I have never seen it since, nor ever had the least clue to its +authorship. It stirred me and haunted me; and it often comes back to me +now, in snatches like these:-- + + "The human mind! That lofty thing, + The palace and the throne + Where Reason sits, a sceptred king, + And breathes his judgment-tone!" + + "The human soul! That startling thing, + Mysterious and sublime; + An angel sleeping on the wing, + Worn by the scoffs of time. + From heaven in tears to earth it stole-- + That startling thing, the human soul." + +I was just beginning, in my questionings as to the meaning of life, to +get glimpses of its true definition from the poets,--that it is love, +service, the sacrifice of self for others' good. The lesson was slowly +learned, but every hint of it went to my heart, and I kept in silent +upon my window wall reminders like that of holy George Herbert:-- + + "Be useful where thou livest, that they may + Both want and wish thy pleasing presence still. + --Find out men's wants and will, + And meet them there. All worldly joys go less + To the one joy of doing kindnesses;" + +and that well-known passage from Talfourd,-- + + "The blessings which the weak and poor can scatter, + Have their own season. + It is a little thing to speak a phase + Of common comfort, which, by daily use, + Has almost lost its sense; yet on the ear + Of him who thought to die unmourned 't will fall + Like choicest music." + +A very familiar extract from Carlos Wilcox, almost the only quotation +made nowadays from his poems, was often on my sister Emilie's lips, +whose heart seemed always to be saying to itself:-- + + "Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold!" + +I had that beside me, too, and I copy part of it here, for her sake, +and because it will be good for my girl readers to keep in mind one of +the noblest utterances of an almost forgotten American poet:-- + + "Rouse to some work of high and holy love, + And thou an angel's happiness shalt know; + Shalt bless the earth while in the world above. + The good begun by thee shall onward flow. + The pure, sweet stream shall deeper, wider grow. + The seed that in these few and fleeting hours + Thy hands, unsparing and unwearied sow, + Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, + And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers." + +One great advantage which came to these many stranger girls through +being brought together, away from their own homes, was that it taught +them to go out of themselves, and enter into the lives of others. +Home-life, when one always stays at home, is necessarily narrowing. +That is one reason why so many women are petty and unthoughtful of any +except their own family's interests. We have hardly begun to live until +we can take in the idea of the whole human family as the one to which +we truly belong. To me, it was an incalculable help to find myself +among so many working-girls, all of us thrown upon our own resources, +but thrown much more upon each others' sympathies. + +And the stream beside which we toiled added to its own inspirations +human suggestions drawn from our acquaintance with each other. It +blended itself with the flow of our lives. Almost the first of my +poemlets in the "Lowell Offering" was entitled "The River." These are +some lines of it:-- + + "Gently flowed a river bright + On its path of liquid light, + Gleaming now soft banks between, + Winding now through valleys green, + Cheering with its presence mild + Cultured fields and woodlands wild. + + "Is not such a pure one's life? + Ever shunning pride and strife, + Noiselessly along she goes, + Known by gentle deeds she does; + Often wandering far, to bless, + And do others kindnesses. + + "Thus, by her own virtues shaded, + While pure thoughts, like starbeams, lie + Mirrored in her heart and eye, + She, content to be unknown, + All serenely moveth on, + Till, released from Time's commotion, + Self is lost in Love's wide ocean." + +There was many a young girl near me whose life was like the beautiful +course of the river in my ideal of her. The Merrimack has blent its +music with the onward song of many a lovely soul that, clad in plain +working-clothes, moved heavenward beside its waters. + +One of the loveliest persons I ever knew was a young girl who worked +opposite to me in the spinning-room. Our eyes made us friends long +before we spoke to each other. She was an orphan, well-bred and +well-educated, about twenty years old, and she had brought with her to +her place of toil the orphan child of her sister, left to her as a +death-bed legacy. They boarded with a relative. The factory +boarding-houses were often managed by families of genuine refinement, +as in this case, and the one comfort of Caroline's life was her +beautiful little niece, to whom she could go home when the day's work +was over. + +Her bereavements had given an appealing sadness to her whole +expression; but she had accepted them and her changed circumstances +with the submission of profound faith which everybody about her felt in +everything she said and did. I think I first knew, through her, how +character can teach, without words. To see her and her little niece +together was almost like looking at a picture of the Madonna. Caroline +afterwards became an inmate of my mother's family, and we were warm +friends until her death a few years ago. + +Some of the girls could not believe that the Bible was meant to be +counted among forbidden books. We all thought that the Scriptures had a +right to go wherever we went, and that if we needed them anywhere, it +was at our work. I evaded the law by carrying some leaves from a torn +Testament in my pocket. + +The overseer, caring more for law than gospel, confiscated all he +found. He had his desk full of Bibles. It sounded oddly to hear him say +to the most religious girl in the room, when he took hers away, "I did +think you had more conscience than to bring that book here." But we had +some close ethical questions to settle in those days. It was a rigid +code of morality under which we lived. Nobody complained of it, +however, and we were doubtless better off for its strictness, in the +end. + +The last window in the row behind me was filled with flourishing +house-plants--fragrant leaved geraniums, the overseer's pets. They gave +that corner a bowery look; the perfume and freshness tempted me there +often. Standing before that window, I could look across the room and +see girls moving backwards and forwards among the spinning-frames, +sometimes stooping, sometimes reaching up their arms, as their work +required, with easy and not ungraceful movements. On the whole, it was +far from being a disagreeable place to stay in. The girls were +bright-looking and neat, and everything was kept clean and shining. The +effect of the whole was rather attractive to strangers. + +My grandfather came to see my mother once at about this time and +visited the mills. When he had entered our room, and looked around for +a moment, he took off his hat and made a low bow to the girls, first +toward the right, and then toward the left. We were familiar with his +courteous habits, partly due to his French descent; but we had never +seen anybody bow to a room full of mill girls in that polite way, and +some one of the family afterwards asked him why he did so. He looked a +little surprised at the question, but answered promptly and with +dignity, "I always take off my hat to ladies." + +His courtesy was genuine. Still, we did not call ourselves ladies. We +did not forget that we were working-girls, wearing coarse aprons +suitable to our work, and that there was some danger of our becoming +drudges. I know that sometimes the confinement of the mill became very +wearisome to me. In the sweet June weather I would lean far out of the +window, and try not to hear the unceasing clash of sound inside. +Looking away to the hills, my whole stifled being would cry out + + "Oh, that I had wings!" + +Still I was there from choice, and + + "The prison unto which we doom ourselves, + No prison is." + +And I was every day making discoveries about life, and about myself. I +had naturally some elements of the recluse, and would never, of my own +choice, have lived in a crowd. I loved quietness. The noise of +machinery was particularly distasteful to me. But I found that the +crowd was made up of single human lives, not one of them wholly +uninteresting, when separately known. I learned also that there are +many things which belong to the whole world of us together, that no one +of us, nor any few of us, can claim or enjoy for ourselves alone. I +discovered, too, that I could so accustom myself to the noise that it +became like a silence to me. And I defied the machinery to make me its +slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts +if I would let them fly high enough. Even the long hours, the early +rising and the regularity enforced by the clangor of the bell were good +discipline for one who was naturally inclined to dally and to dream, +and who loved her own personal liberty with a willful rebellion against +control. Perhaps I could have brought myself into the limitations of +order and method in no other way. + +Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not know +which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say whether the +hard things or the pleasant things did me most good. But when I was +sincerest with myself, as also when I thought least about it, I know +that I was glad to be alive, and to be just where I was. + +It is a conquest when we can lift ourselves above the annoyances of +circumstances over which we have no control; but it is a greater +victory when we can make those circumstances our helpers, when we can +appreciate the good there is in them. It has often seemed to me as if +Life stood beside me, looking me in the face, and saying, "Child, you +must learn to like me in the form in which you see me, before I can +offer myself to you in any other aspect." + +It was so with this disagreeable necessity of living among many people. +There is nothing more miserable than to lose the feeling of our own +distinctiveness, since that is our only clue to the Purpose behind us +and the End before us. But when we have discovered that human beings +are not a mere "mass," but an orderly Whole, of which we are a part, it +is all so different! + +This we working-girls might have learned from the webs of cloth we saw +woven around us. Every little thread must take its place as warp or +woof, and keep in it steadily. Left to itself, it would be only a +loose, useless filament. Trying to wander in an independent or a +disconnected way among the other threads, it would make of the whole +web an inextricable snarl. Yet each little thread must be as firmly +spun as if it were the only one, or the result would be a worthless +fabric. + +That we are entirely separate, while yet we entirely belong to the +Whole, is a truth that we learn to rejoice in, as we come to understand +more and more of ourselves, and of this human life of ours, which seems +so complicated, and yet is so simple. And when we once get a glimpse of +the Divine Plan in it all, and know that to be just where we are, doing +just what we are doing just at this hour because it is our appointed +hour,--when we become aware that this is the very best thing possible +for us in God's universe, the hard task grows easy, the tiresome +employment welcome and delightful. Having fitted ourselves to our +present work in such a way as this, we are usually prepared for better +work, and are sent to take a better place. + +Perhaps this is one of the unfailing laws of progress in our being. +Perhaps the Master of Life always rewards those who do their little +faithfully by giving them some greater opportunity for faithfulness. +Certainly, it is a comfort, wherever we are, to say to ourselves:-- + + "Thou camest not to thy place by accident, + It is the very place God meant for thee." + + + +IX. + +MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS. + +THE pleasure we found in making new acquaintances among our workmates +arose partly from their having come from great distances, regions +unknown to us, as the northern districts of Maine and New Hampshire and +Vermont were, in those days of stage-coach traveling, when rail-roads +had as yet only connected the larger cities with one another. + +It seemed wonderful to me to be talking with anybody who had really +seen mountains and lived among them. One of the younger girls, who +worked beside me during my very first days in the mill, had come from +far up near the sources of the Merrimack, and she told me a great deal +about her home, and about farm-life among the hills. I listened almost +with awe when she said that she lived in a valley where the sun set at +four o'clock, and where the great snowstorms drifted in so that +sometimes they did not see a neighbor for weeks. + +To have mountain-summits looking down upon one out of the clouds, +summer and winter, by day and by night, seemed to me something both +delightful and terrible. And yet here was this girl to whom it all +appeared like the merest commonplace. What she felt about it was that +it was "awful cold, sometimes; the days were so short! and it grew dark +so early!" Then she told me about the spinning, and the husking, and +the sugar-making, while we sat in a corner together, waiting to replace +the full spools by empty ones,--the work usually given to the little +girls. + +I had a great admiration for this girl, because she had come from those +wilderness-regions. The scent of pine-woods and checkerberry-leaves +seemed to bang about her. I believe I liked her all the better because +she said "daown" and "haow." It was part of the mountain-flavor. + +I tried, on my part, to impress her with stories of the sea; but I did +not succeed very well. Her principal comment was, "They don't think +much of sailors up aour way." And I received the impression, from her +and others, and from my own imagination, that rural life was far more +delightful than the life of towns. + +But there is something in the place where we were born that holds us +always by the heartstrings. A town that still has a great deal of the +country in it, one that is rich in beautiful scenery and ancestral +associations, is almost like a living being, with a body and a soul. We +speak of such a town, if our birthplace, as of a mother, and think of +ourselves as her sons and daughters. + +So we felt, my sisters and I, about our dear native town of Beverly. +Its miles of sea-border, almost every sunny cove and rocky headland of +which was a part of some near relative's homestead, were only half a +day's journey distant; and the misty ocean-spaces beyond still widened +out on our imagination from the green inland landscape around us. But +the hills sometimes shut us in, body and soul. To those who have been +reared by the sea a wide horizon is a necessity, both for the mind and +for the eye. + +We had many opportunities of escape towards our native shores, for the +larger part of our large family still remained there, and there was a +constant coming and going among us. The stagedriver looked upon us as +his especial charge, and we had a sense of personal property in the +Salem and Lowell stagecoach, which had once, like a fairy-godmother's +coach, rumbled down into our own little lane, taken possession of us, +and carried us off to a new home. + +My married sisters had families growing up about them, and they liked +to have us younger ones come and help take care of their babies. One of +them sent for me just when the close air and long days' work were +beginning to tell upon my health, and it was decided that I had better +go. The salt wind soon restored my strength, and those months of quiet +family life were very good for me. + +Like most young girls, I had a motherly fondness for little children, +and my two baby-nephews were my pride and delight. The older one had a +delicate constitution, and there was a thoughtful, questioning look in +his eyes, that seemed to gaze forward almost sadly, and foresee that he +should never attain to manhood. The younger, a plump, vigorous urchin, +three or four months old, did, without doubt, "feel his life in every +limb." He was my especial charge, for his brother's clinging weakness +gave him, the first-born, the place nearest his mother's heart. The +baby bore the family name, mine and his mother's; "our little Lark," we +sometimes called him, for his wide-awakeness and his +merry-heartedness.(Alas! neither of those beautiful boys grew up to be +men! One page of my home-memories is sadly written over with their +elegy, the "Graves of a Household." Father, mother, and four sons, an +entire family, long since passed away from earthly sight.) + +The tie between my lovely baby-nephew and myself became very close. The +first two years of a child's life are its most appealing years, and +call out all the latent tenderness of the nature on which it leans for +protection. I think I should have missed one of the best educating +influences of my youth, if I had not had the care of that baby for a +year or more just as I entered my teens. I was never so happy as when I +held him in my arms, sleeping or waking; and he, happy anywhere, was +always contented when he was with me. + +I was as fond as ever of reading, and somehow I managed to combine baby +and book. Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop" was just then coming out in a +Philadelphia weekly paper, and I read it with the baby playing at my +feet, or lying across my lap, in an unfinished room given up to +sea-chests and coffee-bags and spicy foreign odors. (My cherub's papa +was a sea-captain, usually away on his African voyages.) Little Nell +and her grandfather became as real to me as my darling charge, and if a +tear from his nurse's eyes sometimes dropped upon his cheek as he +slept, he was not saddened by it. When he awoke he was irrepressible; +clutching at my hair with his stout pink fists, and driving all +dream-people effectually out of my head. Like all babies, he was +something of a tyrant; but that brief, sweet despotism ends only too +soon. I put him gratefully down, dimpled, chubby, and imperious, upon +the list of my girlhood's teachers. + +My sister had no domestic help besides mine, so I learned a good deal +about general housework. A girl's preparation for life was, in those +days, considered quite imperfect, who had no practical knowledge of +that kind. We were taught, indeed, how to do everything that a woman +might be called upon to do under any circumstances, for herself or for +the household she lived in. It was one of the advantages of the old +simple way of living, that the young daughters of the house were, as a +matter of course, instructed in all these things. They acquired the +habit of being ready for emergencies, and the family that required no +outside assistance was delightfully independent. + +A young woman would have been considered a very inefficient being who +could not make and mend and wash and iron her own clothing, and get +three regular meals and clear them away every day, besides keeping the +house tidy, and doing any other needed neighborly service, such as +sitting all night by a sick-bed. To be "a good watcher" was considered +one of the most important of womanly attainments. People who lived side +by side exchanged such services without waiting to be asked, and they +seemed to be happiest of whom such kindnesses were most expected. + +Every kind of work brings its own compensations and attractions. I +really began to like plain sewing; I enjoyed sitting down for a whole +afternoon of it, fingers flying and thoughts flying faster still,--the +motion of the hands seeming to set the mind astir. Such afternoons used +to bring me throngs of poetic suggestions, particularly if I sat by an +open window and could hear the wind blowing and a bird or two singing. +Nature is often very generous in opening her heart to those who must +keep their hands employed. Perhaps it is because she is always quietly +at work herself, and so sympathizes with her busy human friends. And +possibly there is no needful occupation which is wholly unbeautiful. +The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it--whether we arm +ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished +before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to +welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep us delightful company +all day, and who will make us feel, at evening, that the day was well +worth its fatigues. + +I found my practical experience of housekeeping and baby-tending very +useful to me afterwards at the West, in my sister Emilie's family, when +she was disabled by illness. I think, indeed, that every item of real +knowledge I ever acquired has come into use somewhere or somehow in the +course of the years. But these were not the things I had most wished to +do. The whole world of thought lay unexplored before me,--a world of +which I had already caught large and tempting glimpses, and I did not +like to feel the horizon shutting me in, even to so pleasant a corner +as this. And the worst of it was that I was getting too easy and +contented, too indifferent to the higher realities which my work and my +thoughtful companions had kept keenly clear before me. I felt myself +slipping into an inward apathy from which it was hard to rouse myself. +I could not let it go on so. I must be where my life could expand. + +It was hard to leave the dear little fellow I had taught to walk and to +talk, but I knew he would not be inconsolable. So I only said "I must +go,"--and turned my back upon the sea, and my face to the banks of the +Merrimack. + +When I returned I found that I enjoyed even the familiar, unremitting +clatter of the mill, because it indicated that something was going on. +I liked to feel the people around me, even those whom I did not know, +as a wave may like to feel the surrounding waves urging it forward, +with or against its own will. I felt that I belonged to the world, that +there was something for me to do in it, though I had not yet found out +what. Something to do; it might be very little, but still it would be +my own work. And then there was the better something which I had almost +forgotten--to be! Underneath my dull thoughts the old aspirations were +smouldering, the old ideals rose and beckoned to me through the +rekindling light. + +It was always aspiration rather than ambition by which I felt myself +stirred. I did not care to outstrip others, and become what is called +"distinguished," were that a possibility, so much as I longed to answer +the Voice that invited, ever receding, up to invisible heights, however +unattainable they might seem. I was conscious of a desire that others +should feel something coming to them out of my life like the breath of +flowers, the whisper of the winds, the warmth of the sunshine, and the +depth of the sky. That, I felt, did not require great gifts or a fine +education. We might all be that to each other. And there was no +opportunity for vanity or pride in receiving a beautiful influence, and +giving it out again. + +I do not suppose that I definitely thought all this, though I find that +the verses I wrote for our two mill magazines at about this time often +expressed these and similar longings. They were vague, and they were +too likely to dissipate themselves in mere dreams. But our aspirations +come to us from a source far beyond ourselves. Happy are they who are +"not disobedient unto the heavenly vision"! + +A girl of sixteen sees the world before her through rose-tinted mists, +a blending of celestial colors and earthly exhalations, and she cannot +separate their elements, if she would; they all belong to the landscape +of her youth. It is the mystery of the meeting horizons,--the visible +beauty seeking to lose and find itself in the Invisible. + +In returning to my daily toil among workmates from the hill-country, +the scenery to which they belonged became also a part of my life. They +brought the mountains with them, a new background and a new hope. We +shared an uneven path and homely occupations; but above us hung +glorious summits never wholly out of sight. Every blossom and every +dewdrop at our feet was touched with some tint of that far-off +splendor, and every pebble by the wayside was a messenger from the peak +that our feet would stand upon by and by. + +The true climber knows the delight of trusting his path, of following +it without seeing a step before him, or a glimpse of blue sky above +him, sometimes only knowing that it is the right path because it is the +only one, and because it leads upward. This our daily duty was to us. +Though we did not always know it, the faithful plodder was sure to win +the heights. Unconsciously we learned the lesson that only by humble +Doing can any of us win the lofty possibilities of Being. For indeed, +what we all want to find is not so much our place as our path. The path +leads to the place, and the place, when we have found it, is only a +clearing by the roadside, an opening into another path. + +And no comrades are so dear as those who have broken with us a pioneer +road which it will be safe and good for others to follow; which will +furnish a plain clue for all bewildered travelers hereafter. There is +no more exhilarating human experience than this, and perhaps it is the +highest angelic one. It may be that some such mutual work is to link us +forever with one another in the Infinite Life. + +The girls who toiled together at Lowell were clearing away a few weeds +from the overgrown track of independent labor for other women. They +practically said, by numbering themselves among factory girls, that in +our country no real odium could be attached to any honest toil that any +self-respecting woman might undertake. + +I regard it as one of the privileges of my youth that I was permitted +to grow up among those active, interesting girls, whose lives were not +mere echoes of other lives, but had principle and purpose distinctly +their own. Their vigor of character was a natural development. The New +Hampshire girls who came to Lowell were descendants of the sturdy +backwoodsmen who settled that State scarcely a hundred years before. +Their grandmothers had suffered the hardships of frontier life, had +known the horrors of savage warfare when the beautiful valleys of the +Connecticut and the Merrimack were threaded with Indian trails from +Canada to the white settlements. Those young women did justice to their +inheritance. They were earnest and capable; ready to undertake anything +that was worth doing. My dreamy, indolent nature was shamed into +activity among them. They gave me a larger, firmer ideal of womanhood. + +Often during the many summers and autumns that of late years I have +spent among the New Hampshire hills, sometimes far up the +mountainsides, where I could listen to the first song of the little +brooks setting out on their journey to join the very river that flowed +at my feet when I was a working girl on its banks,--the Merrimack,--I +have felt as if I could also hear the early music of my workmates' +lives, those who were born among these glorious summits. Pure, strong, +crystalline natures, carrying down with them the light of blue skies +and the freshness of free winds to their place of toil, broadening and +strengthening as they went on, who can tell how they have refreshed the +world, how beautifully they have blended their being with the great +ocean of results? A brook's life is like the life of a maiden. The +rivers receive their strength from the rock-born hills, from the +unfailing purity of the mountain-streams. + +A girl's place in the world is a very strong one: it is a pity that she +does not always see it so. It is strongest through her natural impulse +to steady herself by leaning upon the Eternal Life, the only Reality; +and her weakness comes also from her inclination to lean against +something,--upon an unworthy support, rather than none at all. She +often lets her life get broken into fragments among the flimsy +trellises of fashion and conventionality, when it might be a perfect +thing in the upright beauty of its own consecrated freedom. + +Yet girlhood seldom appreciates itself. We often hear a girl wishing +that she were a boy. That seems so strange! God made no mistake in her +creation. He sent her into the world full of power and will to be a +helper; and only He knows how much his world needs help. She is here to +make this great house of humanity a habitable and a beautiful place, +without and within,--a true home for every one of his children. It +matters not if she is poor, if she has to toil for her daily bread, or +even if she is surrounded by coarseness and uncongeniality: nothing can +deprive her of her natural instinct to help, of her birthright as a +helper. These very hindrances may, with faith and patience, develop in +her a nobler womanhood. + +No; let girls be as thankful that they are girls as that they are human +beings; for they also, according to his own loving plan for them, were +created in the image of God. Their real power, the divine dowry of +womanhood, is that of receiving and giving inspiration. In this a girl +often surpasses her brother; and it is for her to hold firmly and +faithfully to her holiest instincts, so that when he lets his standard +droop, she may, through her spiritual strength, be a standard bearer +for him. Courage and self-reliance are now held to be virtues as +womanly as they are manly; for the world has grown wise enough to see +that nothing except a life can really help another life. It is strange +that it should ever have held any other theory about woman. + +That was a true use of the word "help" that grew up so naturally in the +rendering and receiving of womanly service in the old-fashioned New +England household. A girl came into a family as one of the home-group, +to share its burdens, to feel that they were her own. The woman who +employed her, if her nature was at all generous, could not feel that +money alone was an equivalent for a heart's service; she added to it +her friendship, her gratitude and esteem. The domestic problem can +never be rightly settled until the old idea of mutual help is in some +way restored. This is a question for girls of the present generation to +consider, and she who can bring about a practical solution of it will +win the world's gratitude. + +We used sometimes to see it claimed, in public prints, that it would be +better for all of us mill-girls to be working in families, at domestic +service, than to be where we were. Perhaps the difficulties of modern +housekeepers did begin with the opening of the Lowell factories. +Country girls were naturally independent, and the feeling that at this +new work the few hours they had of every-day leisure were entirely +their own was a satisfaction to them. They preferred it to going out as +"hired help." It was like a young man's pleasure in entering upon +business for himself. Girls had never tried that experiment before, and +they liked it. It brought out in them a dormant strength of character +which the world did not previously see, but now fully acknowledges. Of +course they had a right to continue at that freer kind of work as long +as they chose, although their doing so increased the perplexities of +the housekeeping problem for themselves even, since many of them were +to become, and did become, American house-mistresses. + +It would be a step towards the settlement of this vexed and vexing +question if girls would decline to classify each other by their +occupations, which among us are usually only temporary, and are +continually shifting from one pair of hands to another. Changes of +fortune come so abruptly that the millionaire's daughter of to-day may +be glad to earn her living by sewing or sweeping tomorrow. + +It is the first duty of every woman to recognize the mutual bond of +universal womanhood. Let her ask herself whether she would like to hear +herself or little sister spoken of as a shop-girl, or a factory-girl, +or a servant-girl, if necessity had compelled her for a time to be +employed in either of the ways indicated. If she would shrink from it a +little, then she is a little inhuman when she puts her unknown human +sisters who are so occupied into a class by themselves, feeling herself +to be somewhat their superior. She is really the superior person who +has accepted her work and is doing it faithfully, whatever it is. This +designating others by their casual employments prevents one from making +real distinctions, from knowing persons as persons. A false standard is +set up in the minds of those who classify and of those who are +classified. + +Perhaps it is chiefly the fault of ladies themselves that the word +"lady" has nearly lost its original meaning (a noble one) indicating +sympathy and service;--bread-giver to those who are in need. The idea +that it means something external in dress or circumstances has been too +generally adopted by rich and poor; and this, coupled with the sweeping +notion that in our country one person is just as good as another, has +led to ridiculous results, like that of saleswomen calling themselves +"sales-ladies." I have even heard a chambermaid at a hotel introduce +herself to guests as "the chamber-lady." + +I do not believe that any Lowell mill-girl was ever absurd enough to +wish to be known as a "factory-lady," although most of them knew that +"factory-girl" did not represent a high type of womanhood in the Old +World. But they themselves belonged to the New World, not to the Old; +and they were making their own traditions, to hand down to their +Republican descendants--one of which was and is that honest work has no +need to assert itself or to humble itself in a nation like ours, but +simply to take its place as one of the foundation-stones of the +Republic. + +The young women who worked at Lowell had the advantage of living in a +community where character alone commanded respect. They never, at their +work or away from it, heard themselves contemptuously spoken of on +account of their occupation, except by the ignorant or weak-minded, +whose comments they were of course to sensible to heed. + +We may as well acknowledge that one of the unworthy tendencies of +womankind is towards petty estimates of other women. This classifying +habit illustrates the fact. If we must classify our sisters, let us +broaden ourselves by making large classifications. We might all place +ourselves in one of two ranks--the women who do something and the women +who do nothing; the first being of course the only creditable place to +occupy. And if we would escape from our pettinesses, as we all may and +should, the way to do it is to find the key to other lives, and live in +their largeness, by sharing their outlook upon life. Even poorer +people's windows will give us a new horizon, and people's windows will +give us a new horizon, and often a far broader one than our own. + + + +X. + +MILL-GIRLS' MAGAZINES + +THERE was a passage from Cowper that my sister used to quote to us, +because, she said, she often repeated it to herself, and found that it +did her good:-- + + "In such a world, so thorny, and where none + Finds happiness unblighted, or if found, + Without some thistly sorrow at its side, + It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin + Against the law of love, to measure lots + With less distinguished than ourselves, that thus + We may with patience bear our moderate ills, + And sympathize with others, suffering more." + +I think she made us feel--she certainly made me feel--that our lot was +in many ways an unusually fortunate one, and full of responsibilities. +She herself was always thinking what she could do for others, not only +immediately about her, but in the farthest corners of the earth. She +had her Sabbath-school class, and visited all the children in it: she +sat up all night, very often, watching by a sick girl's bed, in the +hospital or in some distant boarding-house; she gave money to send to +missionaries, or to help build new churches in the city, when she was +earning only eight or ten dollars a month clear of her board, and could +afford herself but one "best dress," besides her working clothes. That +best dress was often nothing but a Merrimack print. But she insisted +that it was a great saving of trouble to have just this one, because +she was not obliged to think what she should wear if she were invited +out to spend an evening. And she kept track of all the great +philanthropic movements of the day. She felt deeply the shame and wrong +of American slavery, and tried to make her workmates see and feel it +too.(Petitions to Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District +of Columbia were circulated nearly every year among the mill-girls, and +received thousands of signatures.) + +Whenever she was not occupied with her work or her reading, or with +looking after us younger ones,--two or three hours a day was all the +time she could call her own,--she was sure to be away on some errand of +friendliness or mercy. + +Those who do most for others are always those who are called upon +continually to do a little more, and who find a way to do it. People go +to them as to a bank that never fails. And surely, they who have an +abundance of life in themselves and who give their life out freely to +others are the only really rich. + +Two dollars a week sounds very small, but in Emilie's hands it went +farther than many a princely fortune of to-day, because she managed +with it to make so many people happy. But then she wanted absolutely +nothing for herself; nothing but the privilege of helping others. + +I seem to be eulogizing my sister, though I am simply relating matters +of fact. I could not, however, illustrate my own early experience, +except by the lives around me which most influenced mine. And it was +true that our smaller and more self-centred natures in touching hers +caught something of her spirit, the contagion of her warm heart and +healthy energy. For health is more contagious than disease, and lives +that exhale sweetness around them from the inner heaven of their souls +keep the world wholesome. + +I tried to follow her in my faltering way, and was gratified when she +would send me to look up one of her stray children, or would let me +watch with her at night by a sick-bed. I think it was partly for the +sake of keeping as close to her as I could--though not without a +sincere desire to consecrate myself to the Best--that I became, at +about thirteen, a member of the church which we attended. + +Our minister was a scholarly man, of refined tastes and a sensitive +organization, fervently spiritual, and earnestly devoted to his work. +It was all education to grow up under his influence. I shall never +forget the effect left by the tones of his voice when he first spoke to +me, a child of ten years, at a neighborhood prayer-meeting in my +mother's sitting-room. He had been inviting his listeners to the +friendship of Christ, and turning to my little sister and me, he said,-- + +"And these little children, too; won't they come?" + +The words, and his manner of saving them, brought the tears to my eyes. +Once only before, far back in my earlier childhood--I have already +mentioned the incident--had I heard that Name spoken so tenderly and +familiarly, yet so reverently. It was as if he had been gazing into the +face of an invisible Friend, and bad just turned from Him to look into +ours, while he gave us his message, that He loved us. + +In that moment I again caught a glimpse of One whom I had always known, +but had often forgotten,--One who claimed me as his Father's child, and +would never let me go. It was a real Face that I saw, a real Voice that +I heard, a real Person who was calling me. I could not mistake the +Presence that had so often drawn near me and shone with sunlike eyes +into my soul. The words, "Lord, lift Thou up the light of thy +countenance upon us!" had always given me the feeling that a beautiful +sunrise does. It is indeed a sunrise text, for is not He the Light of +the World? + +And peaceful sunshine seemed pouring in at the windows of my life on +the day when I stood in the aisle before the pulpit with a group, who, +though young, were all much older than myself, and took with them the +vows that bound us to his service. Of what was then said and read I +scarcely remember more than the words of heavenly welcome in the +Epistle, "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners." It +was like coming home, like stepping a little farther beyond the +threshold in at the open door of our Father's house. + +Perhaps I was too young to assume those vows. Had I deferred it a few +years there would have been serious intellectual hindrances. But it was +not the Articles of Faith I was thinking of, although there was a long +list of them, to which we all bowed assent, as was the custom. It was +the homecoming to the "house not made with hands," the gladness of +signifying that I belonged to God's spiritual family, and was being +drawn closer to his heart, with whom none of us are held as "strangers +and foreigners." + +I felt that I was taking up again the clue which had been put into my +childish hand at baptism, and was being led on by it into the unfolding +mysteries of life. Should I ever let it slip from me, and lose the way +to the "many mansions" that now seemed so open and so near? I could not +think so. It is well that we cannot foresee our falterings and +failures. At least I could never forget that I had once felt my own and +other lives bound together with the Eternal Life by an invisible thread. + +The vague, fitful desire I had felt from my childhood to be something +to the world I lived in, to give it something of the the inexpressible +sweetness that often seemed pouring through me, I knew not whence, now +began to shape itself into a definite outreach towards the Source of +all spiritual life. To draw near to the One All-Beautiful Being, +Christ, to know Him as our spirits may know The Spirit, to receive the +breath of his infinitely loving Life into mine, that I might breathe +out that fragrance again into the lives around me--this was the longing +wish that, half hidden from myself, lay deep beneath all other desires +of my soul. This was what religion grew to mean to me, what it is still +growing to mean, more simply and more clearly as the years go on. + +The heart must be very humble to which this heavenly approach is +permitted. It knows that it has nothing in itself, nothing for others, +which it has not received. The loving Voice of Him who gives his +friends his errands to do whispers through them constantly, "Ye are not +your own." + +There may be those who would think my narrative more entertaining, if I +omitted these inner experiences, and related only lighter incidents. +But one thing I was aware of, from the time I began to think and to +wonder about my own life--that what I felt and thought was far more +real to me than the things that happened. + +Circumstances are only the keys that unlock for us the secret of +ourselves; and I learned very early that though there is much to enjoy +in this beautiful outside world, there is much more to love, to believe +in, and to seek, in the invisible world out of which it all grows. +What has best revealed our true selves to ourselves must be most +helpful to others, and one can willingly sacrifice some natural +reserves to such an end. Besides, if we tell our own story at all, we +naturally wish to tell the truest part of it. + +Work, study, and worship were interblended in our life. The church was +really the home-centre to many, perhaps to most of us; and it was one +of the mill regulations that everybody should go to church somewhere. +There must have been an earnest group of ministers at Lowell, since +nearly all the girls attended public worship from choice. + +Our minister joined us in our social gatherings, often inviting us to +his own house, visiting us at our work, accompanying us on our picnics +down the river-bank,--a walk of a mile or so took us into charmingly +picturesque scenery, and we always walked,--suggesting books for our +reading, and assisting us in our studies. + +The two magazines published by the mill-girls, the "Lowell Offering" +and the "Operatives' Magazine," originated with literary meetings in +the vestry of two religious societies, the first in the Universalist +Church, the second in the First Congregational, to which my sister and +I belonged. + +On account of our belonging there, our contributions were given to the +"Operatives' Magazine," the first periodical for which I ever wrote, +issued by the literary society of which our minister took charge. He +met us on regular evenings, read aloud our poems and sketches, and made +such critical suggestions as he thought desirable. This magazine was +edited by two young women, both of whom had been employed in the mills, +although at that time the were teachers in the public schools--a change +which was often made by mill-girls after a few months' residence at +Lowell. A great many of them were district-school teachers at their +homes in the summer, spending only the winters at their work. + +The two magazines went on side by side for a year or two, and then were +united in the "Lowell Offering" which had made the first experiment of +the kind by publishing a trial number or two at irregular intervals. My +sister had sent some verses of mine, on request, to be published in one +of those specimen numbers. But we were not acquainted with the editor +of the "Offering," and we knew only a few of its contributors. The +Universalist Church, in the vestry of which they met, was in a distant +part of the city. Socially, the place where we worshiped was the place +where we naturally came together in other ways. The churches were all +filled to overflowing, so that the grouping together of the girls by +their denominational preferences was almost unavoidable. It was in some +such way as this that two magazines were started instead of one. If the +girls who enjoyed writing had not been so many and so scattered, they +might have made the better arrangement of joining their forces from the +beginning. + +I was too young a contributor to be at first of much value to either +periodical. They began their regular issues, I think, while I was the +nursemaid of my little nephews at Beverly. When I returned to Lowell, +at about sixteen, I found my sister Emilie interested in the +"Operatives' Magazine," and we both contributed to it regularly, until +it was merged in the "Lowell Offering," to which we then transferred +our writing efforts. It did not occur to us to call these efforts +"literary." I know that I wrote just as I did for our little "Diving +Bell,"--as a sort of pastime, and because my daily toil was mechanical, +and furnished no occupation for my thoughts. Perhaps the fact that most +of us wrote in this way accounted for the rather sketchy and +fragmentary character of our "Magazine." It gave evidence that we +thought, and that we thought upon solid and serious matters; but the +criticism of one of our superintendents upon it, very kindly given, was +undoubtedly just: "It has plenty of pith, but it lacks point." + + +The "Offering" had always more of the literary spirit and touch. It +was, indeed, for the first two years, edited by a gentleman of +acknowledged literary ability. But people seemed to be more interested +in it after it passed entirely into the bands of the girls themselves. + +The "Operatives' Magazine" had a decidedly religious tone. We who +wrote for it were loyal to our Puritanic antecedents, and considered it +all-important that our lightest actions should be moved by some earnest +impulse from behind. We might write playfully, but there must be +conscience and reverence somewhere within it all. We had been taught, +and we believed, that idle words were a sin, whether spoken or written. +This, no doubt, gave us a gravity of expression rather unnatural to +youth. + +In looking over the bound volume of this magazine, I am amused at the +grown-up style of thought assumed by myself, probably its very youngest +contributor. I wrote a dissertation on "Fame," quoting from Pollok, +Cowper, and Milton, and ending with Diedrich Knickerbocker's definition +of immortal fame,--"Half a page of dirty paper." For other titles I had +"Thoughts on Beauty;" "Gentility;" "Sympathy," etc. And in one longish +poem, entitled "My Childhood" (written when I was about fifteen), I +find verses like these, which would seem to have come out of a mature +experience:-- + + My childhood! O those pleasant days, when everything seemed free, + And in the broad and verdant fields I frolicked merrily; + When joy came to my bounding heart with every wild bird's song, + And Nature's music in my ears was ringing all day long! + + And yet I would not call them back, those blessed times of yore, + For riper years are fraught with joys I dreamed not of before. + The labyrinth of Science opes with wonders every day; + And friendship hath full many a flower to cheer life's dreary way. + +And glancing through the pages of the "Lowell Offering" a year or two +later, I see that I continued to dismalize myself at times, quite +unnecessarily. The title of one sting of morbid verses is "The +Complaint of a Nobody," in which I compare myself to a weed growing up +in a garden; and the conclusion of it all is this stanza:-- + + "When the fierce storms are raging, I will not repine, + Though I'm heedlessly crushed in the strife; + For surely 't were better oblivion were mine + Than a worthless, inglorious life. + +Now I do not suppose that I really considered myself a weed, though I +did sometimes fancy that a different kind of cultivation would tend to +make me a more useful plant. I am glad to remember that these +discontented fits were only occasional, for certainly they were +unreasonable. I was not unhappy; this was an affectation of +unhappiness; and half conscious that it was, I hid it behind a +different signature from my usual one. + +How truly Wordsworth describes this phase of undeveloped feeling:-- + + "In youth sad fancies we affect, + In luxury of disrespect + To our own prodigal excess + Of too familiar happiness." + +It is a very youthful weakness to exaggerate passing moods into deep +experiences, and if we put them down on paper, we get a fine +opportunity of laughing at ourselves, if we live to outgrow them, as +most of us do. I think I must have had a frequent fancy that I was not +long for this world. Perhaps I thought an early death rather +picturesque; many young people do. There is a certain kind of poetry +that fosters this idea; that delights in imaginary youthful victims, +and has, reciprocally, its youthful devotees. One of my blank verse +poems in the "Offering" is entitled "The Early Doomed." It begins,-- + + And must I die? The world is bright to me, + And everything that looks upon me, smiles. + +Another poem is headed "Memento Mori;" and another, entitled a "Song in +June," which ought to be cheerful, goes off into the doleful request to +somebody, or anybody, to + + Weave me a shroud in the month of June! + +I was, perhaps, healthier than the average girl, and had no +predisposition to a premature decline; and in reviewing these +absurdities of my pen, I feel like saying to any young girl who +inclines to rhyme, "Don't sentimentalize! Write more of what you see +than of what you feel, and let your feelings realize themselves to +others in the shape of worthy actions. Then they will be natural, and +will furnish you with something worth writing." + +It is fair to myself to explain, however, that many of these verses of +mine were written chiefly as exercises in rhythmic expression. I +remember this distinctly about one of my poems with a terrible +title,--"The Murderer's Request,"--in which I made an imaginary +criminal pose for me, telling where he would not and where he would +like to be buried. I modeled my verses,-- + + "Bury ye me on some storm-rifted mountain, + O'erhanging the depths of a yawning abyss,"-- + +upon Byron's, + + "Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle + Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;" + +and I was only trying to see how near I could approach to his exquisite +metre. I do not think I felt at all murderous in writing it; but a more +innocent subject would have been in better taste, and would have met +the exigencies of the dactyl quite as well. + +It is also only fair to myself to say that my rhyming was usually of a +more wholesome kind. I loved Nature as I knew her,--in our stern, +blustering, stimulating New England,--and I chanted the praises of +Winter, of snow-storms, and of March winds (I always took pride in my +birth month, March), with hearty delight. + +Flowers had begun to bring me messages from their own world when I was +a very small child, and they never withdrew their companionship from my +thoughts, for there came summers when I could only look out of the mill +window and dream about them. + +I had one pet window plant of my own, a red rosebush, almost a +perpetual bloomer, that I kept beside me at my work for years. I parted +with it only when I went away to the West, and then with regret, for it +had been to me like a human little friend. But the wild flowers had my +heart. I lived and breathed with them, out under the free winds of +heaven; and when I could not see them, I wrote about them. Much that I +contributed to those mill-magazine pages, they suggested,--my mute +teachers, comforters, and inspirers. It seems to me that any one who +does not care for wild flowers misses half the sweetness of this mortal +life. + +Horace Smith's "Hymn to the Flowers" was a continual delight to me, +after I made its acquaintance. It seemed as if all the wild blossoms of +the woods had wandered in and were twining themselves around the +whirring spindles, as I repeated it, verse after verse. Better still, +they drew me out, in fancy, to their own forest-haunts under +"cloistered boughs," where each swinging "floral bell" was ringing "a +call to prayer," and making "Sabbath in the fields." + +Bryant's "Forest Hymn" did me an equally beautiful service. I knew +every word of it. It seemed to me that Bryant understood the very heart +and soul of the flowers as hardly anybody else did. He made me feel as +if they were really related to us human beings. In fancy my feet +pressed the turf where they grew, and I knew them as my little sisters, +while my thoughts touched them, one by one, saying with him,-- + + "That delicate forest-flower, + With scented breath, and look so like a smile, + Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, + An emanation of the indwelling Life, + A visible token of the upholding Love, + That are the soul of this wide universe." + +I suppose that most of my readers will scarcely be older than I was +when I wrote my sermonish little poems under the inspiration of the +flowers at my factory work, and perhaps they will be interested in +reading a specimen or two from the "Lowell Offering:"-- + + LIVE LIKE THE FLOWERS. + + Cheerfully wave they o'er valley and mountain, + Gladden the desert, and smile by the fountain; + Pale discontent in no young blossom lowers:-- + Live like the flowers! + + Meekly their buds in the heavy rain bending, + Softly their hues with the mellow light blending, + Gratefully welcoming sunlight and showers:-- + Live like the flowers! + + Freely their sweets on the wild breezes flinging, + While in their depths are new odors upspringing:-- + (Blessedness twofold of Love's holy dowers,) + Live like the flowers! + + Gladly they heed Who their brightness has given: + Blooming on earth, look they all up to heaven; + Humbly look up from their loveliest bowers:-- + Live like the flowers! + + Peacefully droop they when autumn is sighing; + Breathing mild fragrance around them in dying, + Sleep they in hope of Spring's freshening hours:-- + Die like the flowers! + +The prose-poem that follows was put into a rhymed version by several +unknown hands in periodicals of that day, so that at last I also wrote +one, in self-defense, to claim my own waif. But it was a prose-poem +that I intended it to be, and I think it is better so. + + +"BRING BACK MY FLOWERS." + +On the bank of a rivulet sat a rosy child. Her lap was filled with +flowers, and a garland of rose-buds was twined around her neck. Her +face was as radiant as the sunshine that fell upon it, and her voice +was as clear as that of the bird which warbled at her side. + +The little stream went singing on, and with every gush of its music the +child lifted a flower in her dimpled hand, and, with a merry laugh, +threw it upon the water. In her glee she forgot that her treasures were +growing less, and with the swift motion of childhood, she flung them +upon the sparkling tide, until every bud and blossom had disappeared. + +Then, seeing her loss, she sprang to her feet, and bursting into tears, +called aloud to the stream, "Bring back my flowers!" But the stream +danced along, regardless of her sorrow; and as it bore the blooming +burden away, her words came back in a taunting echo, along its reedy +margin. And long after, amid the wailing of the breeze and the fitful +bursts of childish grief, was heard the fruitless cry, "Bring back my +flowers!" + +Merry maiden, who art idly wasting the precious moments so bountifully +bestowed upon thee, see in the thoughtless child an emblem of thyself! +Each moment is a perfumed flower. Let its fragrance be diffused in +blessings around thee, and ascend as sweet incense to the beneficent +Giver! + +Else, when thou hast carelessly flung them from thee, and seest them +receding on the swift waters of Time, thou wilt cry, in tones more +sorrowful than those of the weeping child, "Bring back my flowers!" And +thy only answer will be an echo from the shadowy Past,--"Bring back my +flowers!" + + +In the above, a reminiscence of my German studies comes back to me. I +was an admirer of Jean Paul, and one of my earliest attempts at +translation was his "New Year's Night of an Unhappy Man," with its yet +haunting glimpse of "a fair long paradise beyond the mountains." I am +not sure but the idea of trying my hand at a "prose-poem" came to me +from Richter, though it may have been from Herder or Krummacher, whom I +also enjoyed and attempted to translate. + +I have a manuscript-book still, filled with these youthful efforts. I +even undertook to put German verse into English verse, not wincing at +the greatest--Goethe and Schiller. These studies were pursued in the +pleasant days of cloth-room leisure, when my work claimed me only seven +or eight hours in a day. + +I suppose I should have tried to write,--perhaps I could not very well +have helped attempting it,--under any circumstances. My early efforts +would not, probably, have found their way into print, however, but for +the coincident publication of the two mill-girls' magazines, just as I +entered my teens. I fancy that almost everything any of us offered them +was published, though I never was let in to editorial secrets. The +editors of both magazines were my seniors, and I felt greatly honored +by their approval of my contributions. + +One of the "Offering" editors was a Unitarian clergyman's daughter, and +had received an excellent education. The other was a remarkably +brilliant and original young woman, who wrote novels that were +published by the Harpers of New York while she was employed at Lowell. +The two had rooms together for a time, where the members of the +"Improvement Circle," chiefly composed of "Offering" writers, were +hospitably received. + +The "Operatives' Magazine" and the "Lowell Offering" were united in the +year 1842, under the title of the "Lowell Offering and Magazine." + +(And--to correct a mistake which has crept into print--I will say that +I never attained the honor of being editor of either of these +magazines. I was only one of their youngest contributors. The "Lowell +Offering" closed its existence when I was a little more than twenty +years old. The only continuous editing I have ever been engaged in was +upon "Our Young Folks." About twenty years ago I was editor-in-charge +of that magazine for a year or more, and I had previously been its +assistant-editor from its beginning. These explanatory items, however, +do not quite belong to my narrative, and I return to our magazines.) + +We did not receive much criticism; perhaps it would have been better +for us if we had. But then we did lot set ourselves up to be literary; +though we enjoyed the freedom of writing what we pleased, and seeing +how it looked in print. It was good practice for us, and that was all +that we desired. We were complimented and quoted. When a Philadelphia +paper copied one of my little poems, suggesting some verbal +improvements, and predicting recognition for me in the future, I felt +for the first time that there might be such a thing as public opinion +worth caring for, in addition to doing one's best for its own sake. + +Fame, indeed, never had much attraction for me, except as it took the +form of friendly recognition and the sympathetic approval of worthy +judges. I wished to do good and true things, but not such as would +subject me to the stare of coldly curious eyes. I could never imagine a +girl feeling any pleasure in placing herself "before the public." The +privilege of seclusion must be the last one a woman can willingly +sacrifice. + +And, indeed, what we wrote was not remarkable,--perhaps no more so than +the usual school compositions of intelligent girls. It would hardly be +worth while to refer to it particularly, had not the Lowell girls and +their magazines been so frequently spoken of as something phenomenal. +But it was a perfectly natural outgrowth of those girls' previous life. +For what were we? Girls who were working in a factory for the time, to +be sure; but none of us had the least idea of continuing at that kind +of work permanently. Our composite photograph, had it been taken, would +have been the representative New England girlhood of those days. We had +all been fairly educated at public or private schools, and many of us +were resolutely bent upon obtaining a better education. Very few were +among us without some distinct plan for bettering the condition of +themselves and those they loved. For the first time, our young women +had come forth from their home retirement in a throng, each with her +own individual purpose. For twenty years or so, Lowell might have been +looked upon as a rather select industrial school for young people. The +girls there were just such girls as are knocking at the doors of young +women's colleges to-day. They had come to work with their hands, but +they could not hinder the working of their minds also. Their mental +activity was overflowing at every possible outlet. + +Many of them were supporting themselves at schools like Bradford +Academy or Ipswich Seminary half the year, by working in the mills the +other half. Mount Holyoke Seminary broke upon the thoughts of many of +them as a vision of hope,--I remember being dazzled by it myself for a +while,--and Mary Lyon's name was honored nowhere more than among the +Lowell mill-girls. Meanwhile they were improving themselves and +preparing for their future in every possible way, by purchasing and +reading standard books, by attending lectures, and evening classes of +their own getting up, and by meeting each other for reading and +conversation. + +That they should write was no more strange than that they should study, +or read, or think. And yet there were those to whom it seemed +incredible that a girl could, in the pauses of her work, put together +words with her pen that it would do to print; and after a while the +assertion was circulated, through some distant newspaper, that our +magazine was not written by ourselves at all, but by "Lowell lawyers." +This seemed almost too foolish a suggestion to contradict, but the +editor of the "Offering" thought it best to give the name and +occupation of some of the writers by way of refutation. It was for this +reason (much against my own wish) that my real name was first attached +to anything I wrote. I was then book-keeper in the cloth-room of the +Lawrence Mills. We had all used any fanciful signature we chose, +varying it as we pleased. After I began to read and love Wordsworth, my +favorite nom de plume was "Rotha." In the later numbers of the +magazine, the editor more frequently made us of my initials. One day I +was surprised by seeing my name in full in Griswold's "Female +Poet's;"--no great distinction, however, since there were a hundred +names or so, besides. + +It seemed necessary to give these gossip items about myself; but the +real interest of every separate life-story is involved in the larger +life-history which is going on around it. We do not know ourselves +without our companions and surroundings. I cannot narrate my workmates' +separate experiences, but I know that because of having lived among +them, and because of having felt the beauty and power of their lives, I +am different from what I should otherwise have been, and it is my own +fault if I am not better for my life with them. + +In recalling those years of my girlhood at Lowell, I often think that I +knew then what real society is better perhaps than ever since. For in +that large gathering together of young womanhood there were many choice +natures---some of the choicest in all our excellent New England, and +there were no false social standards to hold them apart. It is the best +society when people meet sincerely, on the ground of their deepest +sympathies and highest aspirations, without conventionality or cliques +or affectation; and it was in that way that these young girls met and +became acquainted with each other, almost of necessity. + +There were all varieties of woman-nature among them, all degrees of +refinement and cultivation, and, of course, many sharp contrasts of +agreeable and disagreeable. It was not always the most cultivated, +however, who were the most companionable. There were gentle, untaught +girls, as fresh and simple as wild flowers, whose unpretending goodness +of heart was better to have than bookishness; girls who loved +everybody, and were loved by everybody. Those are the girls that I +remember best, and their memory is sweet as a breeze from the clover +fields. + +As I recall the throngs of unknown girlish forms that used to pass and +repass me on the familiar road to the mill-gates, and also the few that +I knew so well, those with whom I worked, thought, read, wrote, +studied, and worshiped, my thoughts send a heartfelt greeting to them +all, wherever in God's beautiful, busy universe they may now be +scattered:-- + +"I am glad I have lived in the world with you!" + + + +XI. + +READING AND STUDYING. + +My return to mill-work involved making acquaintance with a new kind of +machinery. The spinning-room was the only one I had hitherto known +anything about. Now my sister Emilie found a place for me in the +dressing-room, beside herself. It was more airy, and fewer girls were +in the room, for the dressing-frame itself was a large, clumsy affair, +that occupied a great deal of space. Mine seemed to me as unmanageable +as an overgrown spoilt child. It had to be watched in a dozen +directions every minute, and even then it was always getting itself and +me into trouble. I felt as if the half-live creature, with its great, +groaning joints and whizzing fan, was aware of my incapacity to manage +it, and had a fiendish spite against me. I contracted an unconquerable +dislike to it; indeed, I had never liked, and never could learn to +like, any kind of machinery. And this machine finally conquered me. It +was humiliating, but I had to acknowledge that there were some things I +could not do, and I retired from the field, vanquished. + +The two things I had enjoyed in this room were that my sister was with +me, and that our windows looked toward the west. When the work was +running smoothly, we looked out together and quoted to each other all +the sunset-poetry we could remember. Our tastes did not quite agree. +Her favorite description of the clouds was from Pollok:-- + + "They seemed like chariots of saints, + By fiery coursers drawn; as brightly hued + As if the glorious, bushy, golden locks + Of thousand cherubim had been shorn off, + And on the temples hung of morn and even." + +I liked better a translation from the German, beginning + + "Methinks it were no pain to die + On such an eve, while such a sky + O'ercanopies the west." + +And she generally had to hear the whole poem, for I was very fond of +it; though the especial verse that I contrasted with hers was,-- + + "There's peace and welcome in yon sea + Of endless blue tranquillity; + Those clouds are living things; + I trace their veins of liquid gold, + And see them silently unfold + Their soft and fleecy wings." + +Then she would tell me that my nature inclined to quietness and +harmony, while hers asked for motion and splendor. I wondered whether +it really were so. But that huge, creaking framework beside us would +continually intrude upon our meditations and break up our discussions, +and silence all poetry for us with its dull prose. + +Emilie found more profitable work elsewhere, and I found some that was +less so, but far more satisfactory, as it would give me the openings of +leisure which I craved. + +The paymaster asked, when I left, "Going where on can earn more money?" + +"No," I answered, "I am going where I can have more time." "Ah, yes!" +he said sententiously, "time is money." But that was not my thought +about it. "Time is education," I said to myself; for that was what I +meant it should be to me. + +Perhaps I never gave the wage-earning element in work its due weight. +It always seemed to me that the Apostle's idea about worldly +possessions was the only sensible one,-- + + "Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." + +If I could earn enough to furnish that, and have time to study +besides,--of course we always gave away a little, however little we +had,--it seemed to me a sufficiency. At this time I was receiving two +dollars a week, besides my board. Those who were earning much more, and +were carefully "laying it up," did not appear to be any happier than I +was. + +I never thought that the possession of money would make me feel rich: +it often does seem to have an opposite effect. But then, I have never +had the opportunity of knowing, by experience, how it does make one +feel. It is something to have been spared the responsibility of taking +charge of the Lord's silver and gold. Let us be thankful for what we +have not, as well as for what we have! + +Freedom to live one's life truly is surely more desirable than any +earthly acquisition or possession; and at my new work I had hours of +freedom every day. I never went back again to the bondage of machinery +and a working-day thirteen hours long. + +The daughter of one of our neighbors, who also went to the same church +with us, told me of a vacant place in the cloth-room, where she was, +which I gladly secured. This was a low brick building next the +counting-room, and a little apart from the mills, where the cloth was +folded, stamped, and baled for the market. + +There were only half a dozen girls of us, who measured the cloth, and +kept an account of the pieces baled, and their length in yards. It +pleased me much to have something to do which required the use of pen +and ink, and I think there must be a good many scraps of verse buried +among the blank pages of those old account-books of that found their +way there during the frequent half-hours of waiting for the cloth to be +brought in from the mills. + +The only machinery in the room was a hydraulic arrangement for pressing +the cloth into bales, managed by two or three men, one of whom was +quite a poet, and a fine singer also. His hymns were frequently in +request, on public occasions. He lent me the first volume of Whittier's +poems that I ever saw. It was a small book, containing mostly +Antislavery pieces. "The Yankee Girl" was one of them, fully to +appreciate the spirit of which, it is necessary to have been a +working-girl in slave-labor times. New England Womanhood crowned +Whittier as her laureate from the day of his heroine's spirited +response to the slaveholder:-- + + "O, could ye have seen her--that pride of our girls-- + Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls, + With a scorn in her eye that the gazer could feel, + And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel! + + Go back, haughty Southron! Go back! for thy gold + Is red with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold!" + +There was in this volume another poem which is not in any of the later +editions, the impression of which, as it remains to me in broken +snatches, is very beautiful. It began with the lines + + "Bind up thy tresses, thou beautiful one, + Of brown in the shadow, and gold in the sun." + +It was a refreshment and an inspiration to look into this book between +my long rows of figures, and read such poems as "The Angel of +Patience," "Follen," "Raphael," and that wonderfully rendered "Hymn" +from Lamartine, that used to whisper itself through me after I had read +it, like the echo of a spirit's voice:-- + + "When the Breath Divine is flowing, + Zephyr-like o'er all things going, + And, as the touch of viewless fingers, + Softly on my soul it lingers, + Open to a breath the lightest, + Conscious of a touch the slightest,-- + + Then, O Father, Thou alone, + From the shadow of thy throne, + To the sighing of my breast + And its rapture answerest." + +I grew so familiar with this volume that I felt acquainted with the +poet long before I met him. It remained in my desk-drawer for months. I +thought it belonged to my poetic friend, the baler of cloth. But one +day he informed me that it was a borrowed book; he thought, however, he +should claim it for his own, now that he had kept it so long. Upon +which remark I delivered it up to the custody of his own conscience, +and saw it no more. + +One day, towards the last of my stay at Lowell (I never changed my +work-room again), this same friendly fellow-toiler handed me a poem to +read, which some one had sent in to us from the counting-room, with the +penciled comment, "Singularly beautiful." It was Poe's "Raven," which +had just made its first appearance in some magazine. It seemed like an +apparition in literature, indeed; the sensation it created among the +staid, measured lyrics of that day, with its flit of spectral wings, +and its ghostly refrain of "Nevermore!" was very noticeable. Poe came +to Lowell to live awhile, but it was after I had gone away. + +Our national poetry was at this time just beginning to be well known +and appreciated. Bryant had published two volumes, and every school +child was familiar with his "Death of the Flowers" and "God's First +Temples." Some one lent me the "Voices of the Night," the only +collection of Longfellow's verse then issued, I think. The "Footsteps +of Angels" glided at once into my memory, and took possession of a +permanent place there, with its tender melody. "The Last Leaf" and "Old +Ironsides" were favorites with everybody who read poetry at all, but I +do not think we Lowell girls had a volume of Dr. Holmes's poems at that +time. + +"The Lady's Book" and "Graham's Magazine" were then the popular +periodicals, and the mill-girls took them. I remember that the +"nuggets" I used to pick out of one or the other of them when I was +quite a child were labeled with the signature of Harriet E. Beecher. +"Father Morris," and "Uncle Tim," and others of the delightful +"May-Flower" snatches first appeared in this way. Irving's +"Sketch-Book" all reading people were supposed to have read, and I +recall the pleasure it was to me when one of my sisters came into +possession of "Knickerbocker's History of New York." It was the first +humorous book, as well as the first history, that I ever cared about. +And I was pleased enough--for I was a little girl when my fondness for +it began--to hear our minister say that he always read Diedrich +Knickerbocker for his tired Monday's recreation. + +We were allowed to have books in the cloth-room. The absence of +machinery permitted that privilege. Our superintendent, who was a man +of culture and a Christian gentleman of the Puritan-school, dignified +and reserved, used often to stop at my desk in his daily round to see +what book I was reading. One day it was Mather's "Magnalia," which I +had brought from the public library, with a desire to know something of +the early history of New England. He looked a little surprised at the +archaeological turn my mind had taken, but his only comment was, "A +valuable old book that." It was a satisfaction to have a superintendent +like him, whose granite principles, emphasized by his stately figure +and bearing, made him a tower of strength in the church and in the +community. He kept a silent, kindly, rigid watch over the +corporation-life of which he was the head; and only those of us who +were incidentally admitted to his confidence knew how carefully we were +guarded. + +We had occasional glimpses into his own well-ordered home-life, at +social gatherings. His little daughter was in my infant Sabbath-school +class from her fourth to her seventh or eighth year. She sometimes +visited me at my work, and we had our frolics among the heaps of cloth, +as if we were both children. She had also the same love of hymns that I +had as a child, and she would sit by my side and repeat to me one after +another that she had learned, not as a task, but because of her delight +in them. One of my sincerest griefs in going off to the West was that I +should see my little pupil Mary as a child no more. When I came back, +she was a grown-up young woman. + +My friend Anna, who had procured for me the place and work beside her +which I liked so much, was not at all a bookish person, but we had +perhaps a better time together than if she had been. She was one who +found the happiness of her life in doing kindnesses for others, and in +helping them bear their burdens. Family reverses had brought her, with +her mother and sisters, to Lowell, and this was one strong point of +sympathy between my own family and hers. It was, indeed, a bond of +neighborly union between a great many households in the young +manufacturing city. Anna's manners and language were those of a lady, +though she had come from the wilds of Maine, somewhere in the vicinity +of Mount Desert, the very name of which seemed in those days to carry +one into a wilderness of mountains and waves. We chatted together at +our work on all manner of subjects, and once she astonished me by +saying confidentially, in a low tone, "Do you know, I am thirty years +old!" She spoke as if she thought the fact implied something serious. +My surprise was that she should have taken me into her intimate +friendship when I was only seventeen. I should hardly have supposed her +older than myself, if she had not volunteered the information. + +When I lifted my eyes from her tall, thin figure to her fair face and +somewhat sad blue eyes, I saw that she looked a little worn; but I knew +that it was from care for others, strangers as well as her own +relatives; and it seemed to me as if those thirty loving years were her +rose-garland. I became more attached to her than ever. + +What a foolish dread it is,--showing unripeness rather than youth,--the +dread of growing old! For how can a life be beautified more than by its +beautiful years? A living, loving, growing spirit can never be old. +Emerson says: + + "Spring still makes spring in the mind, + When sixty years are told;" + +and some of us are thankful to have lived long enough to bear witness +with him to that truth. + +The few others who measured cloth with us were nice, bright girls, and +some of them remarkably pretty. Our work and the room itself were so +clean that in summer we could wear fresh muslin dresses, sometimes +white ones, without fear of soiling them. This slight difference of +apparel and our fewer work-hours seemed to give us a slight advantage +over the toilers in the mills opposite, and we occasionally heard +ourselves spoken of as "the cloth-room aristocracy." But that was only +in fun. Most of us had served an apprenticeship in the mills, and many +of our best friends were still there, preferring their work because it +brought them more money than we could earn. + +For myself, no amount of money would have been a temptation, compared +with my precious daytime freedom. Whole hours of sunshine for reading, +for walking, for studying, for writing, for anything that I wanted to +do! The days were so lovely and so long! and yet how fast they slipped +away! I had not given up my dream of a better education, and as I could +not go to school, I began to study by myself. + +I had received a pretty thorough drill in the common English branches +at the grammar school, and at my employment I only needed a little +simple arithmetic. A few of my friends were studying algebra in an +evening class, but I had no fancy for mathematics. My first wish was to +learn about English Literature, to go back to its very beginnings. It +was not then studied even in the higher schools, and I knew no one who +could give me any assistance in it, as a teacher. "Percy's Reliques" +and "Chambers' Cyclopoedia of English Literature" were in the city +library, and I used them, making extracts from Chaucer and Spenser, to +fix their peculiarities in my memory, though there was only a taste of +them to be had from the Cyclopaedia. + +Shakespeare I had read from childhood, in a fragmentary way. "The +Tempest," and "Midsummer Night's Dream," and "King Lear," I had +swallowed among my fairy tales. Now I discovered that the historical +plays, notably, "Julius Caesar" and "Coriolanus," had no less +attraction for me, though of a different kind. But it was easy for me +to forget that I was trying to be a literary student, and slip off from +Belmont to Venice with Portia to witness the discomfiture of Shylock; +although I did pity the miserable Jew, and thought he might at least +have been allowed the comfort of his paltry ducats. I do not think that +any of my studying at this time was very severe; it was pleasure rather +than toil, for I undertook only the tasks I liked. But what I learned +remained with me, nevertheless. + +With Milton I was more familiar than with any other poet, and from +thirteen years of age to eighteen he was my preference. My friend +Angeline and I (another of my cloth-room associates) made the "Paradise +Lost" a language-study in an evening class, under one of the grammar +school masters, and I never open to the majestic lines,-- + + "High on a throne of royal state, which far + Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, + Or where the gorgeous east with richest hand + Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,"-- + +Without seeing Angeline's kindly, homely face out-lined through that +magnificence, instead of the lineaments of the evil angel + + "by merit raised + To that bad eminence." + +She, too, was much older than I, and a most excellent, energetic, and +studious young woman. I wonder if she remembers how hard we tried to get + + "Beelzebub--than whom, + Satan except, none higher sat," + +into the limits of our grammatical rules,--not altogether with success, +I believe. + +I copied passages from Jeremy Taylor and the old theologians into my +note-books, and have found them useful even recently, in preparing +compilations. Dryden and the eighteenth century poets generally did not +interest me, though I tried to read them from a sense of duty. Pope was +an exception, however. Aphorisms from the "Essay on Man" were in as +common use among us as those from the Book of Proverbs. + +Some of my choicest extracts were in the first volume of collected +poetry I ever owned, a little red morocco book called "The Young Man's +Book of Poetry." It was given me by one of my sisters when I was about +a dozen years old, who rather apologized for the young man on the +title-page, saying that the poetry was just as good as if he were not +there. + +And, indeed, no young man could have valued it more than I did. It +contained selections from standard poets, and choice ones from less +familiar sources. One of the extracts was Wordsworth's "Sunset among +the Mountains," from the "Excursion," to read which, however often, +always lifted me into an ecstasy. That red morocco book was my +treasure. It traveled with me to the West, and I meant to keep it as +long as I lived. But alas! it was borrowed by a little girl out on the +Illinois prairies, who never brought it back. I do not know that I have +ever quite forgiven her. I have wished I could look into it again, +often and often through the years. But perhaps I ought to be grateful +to that little girl for teaching me to be careful about returning +borrowed books myself. Only a lover of them can appreciate the loss of +one which has been a possession from childhood. + +Young and Cowper were considered religious reading, and as such I had +always known something of them. The songs of Burns were in the air. +Through him I best learned to know poetry as song. I think that I heard +the "Cotter's Saturday Night" and "A man's a man for a' that" more +frequently quoted than any other poems familiar to my girlhood. + +Some of my work-folk acquaintances were regular subscribers to +"Blackwood's Magazine" and the "Westminster" and "Edinburgh" reviews, +and they lent them to me. These, and Macaulay's "Essays," were a great +help and delight. I had also the reading of the "Bibliotheca Sacra" and +the "New Englander;" and sometimes of the "North American Review." + +By the time I had come down to Wordsworth and Coleridge in my readings +of English poetry, I was enjoying it all so much that I could not any +longer call it study. + +A gift from a friend of Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of England" gave +me my first knowledge of Tennyson. It was a great experience to read +"Locksley Hall" for the first time while it was yet a new poem, and +while one's own young life was stirred by the prophetic spirit of the +age that gave it birth. + +I had a friend about my own age, and between us there was something +very much like what is called a "school-girl friendship," a kind of +intimacy supposed to be superficial, but often as deep and permanent as +it is pleasant. + +Eliza and I managed to see each other every day; we exchanged +confidences, laughed and cried together, read, wrote, walked, visited, +and studied together. Her dress always had an airy touch which I +admired, although I was rather indifferent as to what I wore myself. +But she would endeavor to "fix me up" tastefully, while I would help +her to put her compositions for the "Offering" into proper style. She +had not begun to go to school at two years old, repeating the same +routine of study every year of her childhood, as I had. When a child, +I should have thought it almost as much of a disgrace to spell a word +wrong, or make a mistake in the multiplication table, as to break one +of the Ten Commandments. I was astonished to find that Eliza and other +friends had not been as particularly dealt with in their early +education. But she knew her deficiencies, and earned money enough to +leave her work and attend a day-school part of the year. + +She was an ambitious scholar, and she persuaded me into studying the +German language with her. A native professor had formed a class among +young women connected with the mills, and we joined it. We met, six or +eight of us, at the home of two of these young women,--a factory +boarding-house,--in a neat little parlor which contained a piano. The +professor was a music-teacher also, and he sometimes brought his +guitar, and let us finish our recitation with a concert. More +frequently he gave us the songs of Deutschland that we begged for. He +sang the "Erl-King" in his own tongue admirably. We went through +Follen's German Grammar and Reader:--what a choice collection of +extracts that "Reader" was! We conquered the difficult gutturals, like +those in the numeral "acht und achtzig" (the test of our pronouncing +abilities) so completely that the professor told us a native really +would understand us! At his request, I put some little German songs +into English, which he published as sheet-music, with my name. To hear +my words sung quite gave me the feeling of a successful translator. The +professor had his own distinctive name for each of his pupils. Eliza +was "Naivete," from her artless manners; and me he called "Etheria," +probably on account of my star-gazing and verse-writing habits. +Certainly there was never anything ethereal in my visible presence. + +A botany class was formed in town by a literary lady who was preparing +a school text-book on the subject, and Eliza and I joined that also. +The most I recall about that is the delightful flower-hunting rambles +we took together. The Linnaean system, then in use, did not give us a +very satisfactory key to the science. But we made the acquaintance of +hitherto unfamiliar wild flowers that grew around us, and that was the +opening to us of another door towards the Beautiful. + +Our minister offered to instruct the young people of his parish in +ethics, and my sister Emilie and myself were among his pupils. We came +to regard Wayland's "Moral Science" (our text-book) as most interesting +reading, and it furnished us with many subjects for thought and for +social discussion. + +Carlyle's "Hero-Worship" brought us a startling and keen enjoyment. It +was lent me by a Dartmouth College student, the brother of one of my +room-mates, soon after it was first published in this country. The +young man did not seem to know exactly what to think of it, and wanted +another reader's opinion. Few persons could have welcomed those early +writings of Carlyle more enthusiastically than some of us working-girls +did. The very ruggedness of the sentences had a fascination for us, +like that of climbing over loose bowlders in a mountain scramble to get +sight of a wonderful landscape. + +My room-mate, the student's sister, was the possessor of an +electrifying new poem,--"Festus,"--that we sat up nights to read. It +does not seem as if it could be more than forty years since Sarah and I +looked up into each other's face from the page as the lamplight grew +dim, and said, quoting from the poem,-- + +"Who can mistake great thoughts?" + +She gave me the volume afterwards, when we went West together, and I +have it still. Its questions and conjectures were like a glimpse into +the chaos of our own dimly developing inner life. The fascination of +"Festus" was that of wonder, doubt, and dissent, with great outbursts +of an overmastering faith sweeping over our minds as we read. Some of +our friends thought it not quite safe reading; but we remember it as +one of the inspirations of our workaday youth. + +We read books, also, that bore directly upon the condition of humanity +in our time. "The Glory and Shame of England" was one of them, and it +stirred us with a wonderful and painful interest. + +We followed travelers and explorers,--Layard to Nineveh, and Stephens +to Yucatan. And we were as fond of good story-books as any girls that +live in these days of overflowing libraries. One book, a +character-picture from history, had a wide popularity in those days. It +is a pity that it should be unfamiliar to modern girlhood,--Ware's +"Zenobia." The Queen of Palmyra walked among us, and held a lofty place +among our ideals of heroic womanhood, never yet obliterated from +admiring remembrance. + +We had the delight of reading Frederika Bremer's "Home" and "Neighbors" +when they were fresh from the fountains of her own heart; and some of +us must not be blamed for feeling as if no tales of domestic life half +so charming have been written since. Perhaps it is partly because the +home-life of Sweden is in itself so delightfully unique. + +We read George Borrow's "Bible in Spain," and wandered with him among +the gypsies to whom he seemed to belong. I have never forgotten a verse +that this strange traveler picked up somewhere among the Zincali:-- + + "I'll joyfully labor, both night and day, + To aid my unfortunate brothers; + As a laundress tans her own face in the ray + To cleanse the garments of others." + +It suggested a somewhat similar verse to my own mind. Why should not +our washerwoman's work have its touch of poetry also?-- + + This thought flashed by like a ray of light + That brightened my homely labor:-- + The water is making my own hands white + While I wash the robes of my neighbor. + +And how delighted we were with Mrs. Kirkland's "A New Home: Who'll +Follow?" the first real Western book I ever read. Its genuine +pioneer-flavor was delicious. And, moreover, it was a prophecy to +Sarah, Emilie, and myself, who were one day thankful enough to find an +"Aunty Parshall's dish-kettle" in a cabin on an Illinois prairie. + +So the pleasantly occupied years slipped on, I still nursing my purpose +of a more systematic course of study, though I saw no near possibility +of its fulfillment. It came in an unexpected way, as almost everything +worth having does come. I could never have dreamed that I was going to +meet my opportunity nearly or quite a thousand miles away, on the banks +of the Mississippi. And yet, with that strange, delightful +consciousness of growth into a comprehension of one's self and of one's +life that most young persons must occasionally have experienced, I +often vaguely felt heavens opening for my half-fledged wings to try +themselves in. Things about me were good and enjoyable, but I could not +quite rest in them; there was more for me to be, to know, and to do. I +felt almost surer of the future than of the present. + +If the dream of the millennium which brightened the somewhat sombre +close of the first ten years of my life had faded a little, out of the +very roughnesses of the intervening road light had been kindled which +made the end of the second ten years glow with enthusiastic hope. I had +early been saved from a great mistake; for it is the greatest of +mistakes to begin life with the expectation that it is going to be +easy, or with the wish to have it so. What a world it would be, if +there were no hills to climb! Our powers were given us that we might +conquer obstacles, and clear obstructions from the overgrown human +path, and grow strong by striving, led onward always by an Invisible +Guide. + +Life to me, as I looked forward, was a bright blank of mystery, like +the broad Western tracts of our continent, which in the atlases of +those days bore the title of "Unexplored Regions." It was to be +penetrated, struggled through; and its difficulties were not greatly +dreaded, for I had not lost + + "The dream of Doing,-- + The first bound in the pursuing." + +I knew that there was no joy like the joy of pressing forward. + + + +XII. + +FROM THE MERRIMACK TO THE MISSISSIPPI. + +THE years between 1835 and 1845, which nearly cover the time I lived at +Lowell, seem to me, as I look back at them, singularly interesting +years. People were guessing and experimenting and wondering and +prophesying about a great many things,--about almost everything. We +were only beginning to get accustomed to steamboats and railroads. To +travel by either was scarcely less an adventure to us younger ones than +going up in a balloon. + +Phrenology was much talked about; and numerous "professors" of it came +around lecturing, and examining heads, and making charts of cranial +"bumps." This was profitable business to them for a while, as almost +everybody who invested in a "character" received a good one; while many +very commonplace people were flattered into the belief that they were +geniuses, or might be if they chose. + +Mesmerism followed close upon phrenology; and this too had its +lecturers, who entertained the stronger portion of their audiences by +showing them how easily the weaker ones could be brought under an +uncanny influence. + +The most widespread delusion of the time was Millerism. A great many +persons--and yet not so many that I knew even one of them--believed +that the end of the world was coming in the year 1842; though the date +was postponed from year to year, as the prophesy failed of fulfillment. +The idea in itself was almost too serious to be jested about; and yet +its advocates made it so literal a matter that it did look very +ridiculous to unbelievers. + +An irreverent little workmate of mine in the spinning-room made a +string of jingling couplets about it, like this:-- + + "Oh dear! oh dear! what shall we do + In eighteen hundred and forty-two? + + "Oh dear! oh dear! where shall we be + In eighteen hundred and forty-three? + + "Oh dear! oh dear! we shall be no more + In eighteen hundred and forty-four, + + "Oh dear! oh dear! we sha'n't be alive + In eighteen hundred and forty-five." + +I thought it audacious in her, since surely she and all of us were +aware that the world would come to an end some time, in some way, for +every one of us. I said to myself that I could not have "made up" those +rhymes. Nevertheless we all laughed at them together. + +A comet appeared at about the time of the Miller excitement, and also a +very unusual illumination of sky and earth by the Aurora Borealis. This +latter occurred in midwinter. The whole heavens were of a deep +rose-color--almost crimson--reddest at the zenith, and paling as it +radiated towards the horizon. The snow was fresh on the ground, and +that, too, was of a brilliant red. Cold as it was, windows were thrown +up all around us for people to look out at the wonderful sight. I was +gazing with the rest, and listening to exclamations of wonder from +surrounding unseen beholders, when somebody shouted from far down the +opposite block of buildings, with startling effect,-- + + "You can't stand the fire + In that great day!" + +It was the refrain of a Millerite hymn. The Millerites believed that +these signs in the sky were omens of the approaching catastrophe. And +it was said that some of them did go so far as to put on white +"ascension robes," and assemble somewhere, to wait for the expected +hour. + +When daguerreotypes were first made, when we heard that the sun was +going to take everybody's portrait, it seemed almost too great a marvel +to be believed. While it was yet only a rumor that such a thing had +been done, somewhere across the sea, I saw some verses about it which +impressed me much, but which I only partly remember. These were the +opening lines:-- + + "Oh, what if thus our evil deeds + Are mirrored on the sky, + And every line of our wild lives + Daguerreotyped on high!" + +My sister and I considered it quite an event when we went to have our +daguerreotypes taken just before we started for the West. The +photograph was still an undeveloped mystery. + +Things that looked miraculous then are commonplace now. It almost seems +as if the children of to-day could not have so good a time as we did, +science has left them so little to wonder about. Our attitude--the +attitude of the time--was that of children climbing their dooryard +fence, to watch an approaching show, and to conjecture what more +remarkable spectacle could be following behind. New England had kept to +the quiet old-fashioned ways of living for the first fifty years of the +Republic. Now all was expectancy. Changes were coming. Things were +going to happen, nobody could guess what. + +Things have happened, and changes have come. The New England that has +grown up with the last fifty years is not at all the New England that +our fathers knew. We speak of having been reared under Puritanic +influences, but the traditionary sternness of these was much modified, +even in the childhood of the generation to which I belong. We did not +recognize the grim features of the Puritan, as we used sometimes to +read about him, in our parents or relatives. And yet we were children +of the Puritans. + +Everything that was new or strange came to us at Lowell. And most of +the remarkable people of the day came also. How strange it was to see +Mar Yohannan, a Nestorian bishop, walking through the factory yard in +his Oriental robes with more than a child's wonder on his face at the +stir and rush of everything! He came from Boston by railroad, and was +present at the wedding at the clergyman's house where he visited. The +rapidity of the simple Congregational service astonished him. + +"What? Marry on railroad, too?" he asked. + +Dickens visited Lowell while I was there, and gave a good report of +what he saw in his "American Notes." We did not leave work even to gaze +at distinguished strangers, so I missed seeing him. But a friend who +did see him sketched his profile in pencil for me as he passed along +the street. He was then best known as "Boz." + +Many of the prominent men of the country were in the habit of giving +Lyceum lectures, and the Lyceum lecture of that day was a means of +education, conveying to the people the results of study and thought +through the best minds. At Lowell it was more patronized by the +mill-people than any mere entertainment. We had John Quincy Adams, +Edward Everett, John Pierpont, and Ralph Waldo Emerson among our +lecturers, with numerous distinguished clergymen of the day. Daniel +Webster was once in the city, trying a law case. Some of my girl +friends went to the court-room and had a glimpse of his face, but I +just missed seeing him. + +Sometimes an Englishman, who was studying our national institutions, +would call and have a friendly talk with us at work. Sometimes it was a +traveler from the South, who was interested in some way. I remember +one, an editor and author from Georgia, who visited our Improvement +Circle, and who sent some of us "Offering" contributors copies of his +book after he had returned home. + +One of the pleasantest visitors that I recall was a young Quaker woman +from Philadelphia, a school-teacher, who came to see for herself how +the Lowell girls lived, of whom she had heard so much. A deep, quiet +friendship grew up between us two. I wrote some verses for her when we +parted, and she sent me one cordial, charmingly-written letter. In a +few weeks I answered it; but the response was from another person, a +near relative. She was dead. But she still remains a real person to me; +I often recall her features and the tone of her voice. It was as if a +beautiful spirit from an invisible world had slipped in among us, and +quickly gone back again. + +It was an event to me, and to my immediate friends among the +mill-girls, when the poet Whittier came to Lowell to stay awhile. I had +not supposed that it would be my good fortune to meet him; but one +evening when we assembled at the "Improvement Circle," he was there. +The "Offering" editor, Miss Harriet Farley, had lived in the same town +with him, and they were old acquaintances. It was a warm, summer +evening. I recall the circumstance that a number of us wore white +dresses; also that I shrank back into myself, and felt much abashed +when some verses of mine were read by the editor,--with others so much +better, however, that mine received little attention. I felt relieved; +for I was not fond of having my productions spoken of, for good or ill. +He commended quite highly a poem by another member of the Circle, on +"Pentucket," the Indian name of his native place, Haverhill. My +subject was "Sabbath Bells." As the Friends do not believe in +"steeple-houses," I was at liberty to imagine that it was my theme, and +not my verses, that failed to interest him. + +Various other papers were read,--stories, sketches, etc., and after the +reading there was a little conversation, when he came and spoke to me. +I let the friend who had accompanied me do my part of the talking for I +was too much overawed by the presence of one whose poetry I had so long +admired, to say a great deal. But from that evening we knew each other +as friends; and, of course, the day has a white mark among memories of +my Lowell life. + +Mr. Whittier's visit to Lowell had some political bearing upon the +antislavery cause. It is strange now to think that a cause like that +should not always have been our country's cause,--our country,--our own +free nation! But antislavery sentiments were then regarded by many as +traitorous heresies; and those who held them did not expect to win +popularity. If the vote of the mill-girls had been taken, it would +doubtless have been unanimous on the antislavery side. But those were +also the days when a woman was not expected to give, or even to have, +an opinion on subjects of public interest. + +Occasionally a young girl was attracted to the Lowell mills through her +own idealization of the life there, as it had been reported to her. +Margaret Foley, who afterwards became distinguished as a sculptor, was +one of these. She did not remain many months at her occupation,--which +I think was weaving,--soon changing it for that of teaching and +studying art. Those who came as she did were usually disappointed. +Instead of an Arcadia, they found a place of matter-of-fact toil, +filled with a company of industrious, wide-awake girls, who were +faithfully improving their opportunities, while looking through them +into avenues Toward profit and usefulness, more desirable yet. It has +always been the way of the steady-minded New Englander to accept the +present situation--but to accept it without boundaries, taking in also +the larger prospects--all the heavens above and the earth +beneath--towards which it opens. + +The movement of New England girls toward Lowell was only an impulse of +a larger movement which about that time sent so many people from the +Eastern States into the West. The needs of the West were constantly +kept before us in the churches. We were asked for contributions for +Home Missions, which were willingly given; and some of us were +appointed collectors of funds for the education of indigent young men +to become Western Home Missionary preachers. There was something almost +pathetic in the readiness with which this was done by young girls who +were longing to fit themselves for teachers, but had not the means. +Many a girl at Lowell was working to send her brother to college, who +had far more talent and character than he; but a man could preach, and +it was not "orthodox" to think that a woman could. And in her devotion +to him, and her zeal for the spread of Christian truth, she was hardly +conscious of her own sacrifice. Yet our ministers appreciated the +intelligence and piety of their feminine parishioners. An agent who +came from the West for school-teachers was told by our own pastor that +five hundred could easily be furnished from among Lowell mill-girls. +Many did go, and they made another New England in some of our Western +States. + +The missionary spirit was strong among my companions. I never thought +that I had the right qualifications for that work; but I had a desire +to see the prairies and the great rivers of the West, and to get a +taste of free, primitive life among pioneers. + +Before the year 1845, several of my friends had emigrated as teachers +or missionaries. One of the editors of the "Operatives' Magazine" had +gone to Arkansas with a mill-girl who had worked beside her among the +looms. They were at an Indian mission--to the Cherokees and Choctaws. I +seemed to breathe the air of that far Southwest, in a spray of yellow +jessamine which one of those friends sent me, pressed in a letter. +People wrote very long letters then, in those days of twenty-five cent +postage. + +Rachel, at whose house our German class had been accustomed to meet, +had also left her work, and had gone to western Virginia to take charge +of a school. She wrote alluring letters to us about the scenery there; +it was in the neighborhood of the Natural Bridge. + +My friend Angeline, with whom I used to read "Paradise Lost," went to +Ohio as a teacher, and returned the following year, for a very brief +visit, however,--and with a husband. Another acquaintance was in +Wisconsin, teaching a pioneer school. Eliza, my intimate companion, was +about to be married to a clergyman. She, too, eventually settled at the +West. + +The event which brought most change into my own life was the marriage +of my sister Emilie. It involved the breaking up of our own little +family, of which she had really been the "houseband," the return of my +mother to my sisters at Beverly, and my going to board among strangers, +as other girls did. I found excellent quarters and kind friends, but +the home-life was ended. + +My sister's husband was a grammar school master in the city, and their +cottage, a mile or more out, among the open fields, was my frequent +refuge from homesickness and the general clatter. Our partial +separation showed me how much I had depended upon my sister. I had +really let her do most of my thinking for me. Henceforth I was to trust +to my own resources. I was no longer the "little sister" who could ask +what to do, and do as she was told. It often brought me a feeling of +dismay to find that I must make up my own mind about things small and +great. And yet I was naturally self-reliant. I am not sure but +self-reliance and dependence really belong together. They do seem to +meet in the same character, like other extremes. + +The health of Emilie's husband failing, after a year or two, it was +evident that he must change his employment and his residence. He +decided to go with his brother to Illinois and settle upon a prairie +farm. Of course his wife and baby boy must go too, and with the +announcement of this decision came an invitation to me to accompany +them. I had no difficulty as to my response. It was just what I wanted +to do. I was to teach a district school; but what there was beyond +that, I could not guess. I liked to feel that it was all as vague as +the unexplored regions to which I was going. My friend and room-mate +Sarah, who was preparing herself to be a teacher, was invited to join +us, and she was glad to do so. It was all quickly settled, and early in +the spring of 1846 we left New England. + +When I came to a realization of what I was leaving, when good-bys had +to be said, I began to feel very sorrowful, and to wish it was not to +be. I said positively that I should soon return, but underneath my +protestations I was afraid that I might not. The West was very far off +then, a full week's journey. It would be hard getting back. Those I +loved might die; I might die myself. These thoughts passed through my +mind, though not through my lips. My eyes would sometimes tell the +story, however, and I fancy that my tearful farewells must have seemed +ridiculous to many of my friends, since my going was of my own cheerful +choice. + +The last meeting of the Improvement Circle before I went away was a +kind of surprise party to me. Several original poems were read, +addressed to me personally. I am afraid that I received it all in a +dumb, undemonstrative way, for I could not make it seem real that I was +the person meant, or that I was going away at all. But I treasured +those tributes of sympathy afterwards, under the strange, spacious +skies where I sometimes felt so alone. + +The editors of the "Offering" left with me a testimonial in money, +accompanied by an acknowledgment of my contributions during several +years; but I had never dreamed of pay, and did not know how to look +upon it so. I took it gratefully, however, as a token of their +appreciation, and twenty dollars was no small help toward my outfit. +Friends brought me books and other keepsakes. Our minister, gave me +D'Aubigne's "History of the Reformation" as a parting gift. It was +quite a circumstance to be "going out West." + +The exhilaration of starting off on one's first long journey, young, +ignorant, buoyant, expectant, is unlike anything else, unless it be +youth itself, the real beginning of the real journey--life. Annoyances +are overlooked. Everything seems romantic and dreamlike. + +We went by a southerly route, on account of starting so early in the +season there was snow on the ground the day we left. On the second day, +after a moonlight night on Long Island Sound, we were floating down the +Delaware, between shores misty-green with budding willows; then (most +of us seasick, though I was not) we were tossed across Chesapeake Bay; +then there was a railway ride to the Alleghanies, which gave us +glimpses of the Potomac and the Blue Ridge, and of the lovely scenery +around Harper's Ferry; then followed a stifling night on the mountains, +when we were packed like sardines into a stagecoach, without a breath +of air, and the passengers were cross because the baby cried, while I +felt inwardly glad that one voice among us could give utterance to the +general discomfort, my own part of which I could have borne if I could +only have had an occasional peep out at the mountain-side. After that +it was all river-voyaging, down the Monongahela into the Ohio, and up +the Mississippi. + +As I recall this part of it, I should say that it was the perfection of +a Western journey to travel in early spring by an Ohio River +steamboat,--such steamboats as they had forty years ago, comfortable, +roomy, and well ordered. The company was social, as Western emigrants +were wont to be when there were not so very many of them, and the +shores of the river, then only thinly populated, were a constantly +shifting panorama of wilderness beauty. I have never since seen a +combination of spring colors so delicate as those shown by the uplifted +forests of the Ohio, where the pure white of the dogwood and the +peach-bloom tint of the red-bud (Judas tree) were contrasted with soft +shades of green, almost endlessly various, on the unfolding leafage. + +Contrasted with the Ohio, the Mississippi had nothing to show but +breadth and muddiness. More than one of us glanced at its level shores, +edged with a monotonous growth of cottonwood, and sent back a sigh +towards the banks of the Merrimack. But we did not let each other know +what the sigh was for, until long after. The breaking-up of our little +company when the steamboat landed at Saint Louis was like the ending of +a pleasant dream. We had to wake up to the fact that by striking due +east thirty or forty miles across that monotonous Greenness, we should +reach our destination, and must accept whatever we should find there, +with such grace as we could. + +What we did find, and did not find, there is not room fully to relate +here. Ours was at first the roughest kind of pioneering experience; +such as persons brought up in our well-to-do New England could not be +in the least prepared for, though they might imagine they were, as we +did. We were dropped down finally upon a vast green expense, extending +hundreds of miles north and south through the State of Illinois, then +known as Looking-Glass Prairie. The nearest cabin to our own was about +a mile away, and so small that at that distance it looked like a +shingle set up endwise in the grass. Nothing else was in sight, not +even a tree, although we could see miles and miles in every direction. +There were only the hollow blue heavens above us and the level green +prairie around us,--an immensity of intense loneliness. We seldom saw a +cloud in the sky, and never a pebble beneath our feet. If we could have +picked up the commonest one, we should have treasured it like a +diamond. Nothing in nature now seemed so beautiful to us as rocks. We +had never dreamed of a world without them; it seemed like living on a +floor without walls or foundations. + +After a while we became accustomed to the vast sameness, and even liked +it in a lukewarm way. And there were times when it filled us with +emotions of grandeur. Boundlessness in itself is impressive; it makes +us feel our littleness, and yet releases us from that littleness. + +The grass was always astir, blowing one way, like the waves of the sea; +for there was a steady, almost an unvarying wind from the south. It was +like the sea, and yet even more wonderful, for it was a sea of living +and growing things. The Spirit of God was moving upon the face of the +earth, and breathing everything into life. We were but specks on the +great landscape. But God was above it all, penetrating it and us with +his infinite warmth. The distance from human beings made the Invisible +One seem so near! Only Nature and ourselves now, face to face with Him! + +We could scarcely have found in all the world a more complete contrast +to the moving crowds and the whir and dust of the City of Spindles, +than this unpeopled, silent prairie. + +For myself, I know that I was sent in upon my own thoughts deeper than +I had ever been before. I began to question things which I had never +before doubted. I must have reality. Nothing but transparent truth +would bear the test of this great, solitary stillness. As the prairies +lay open to the sunshine, my heart seemed to lie bare beneath the +piercing eye of the All-Seeing. I may say with gratitude that only some +superficial rubbish of acquired opinion was scorched away by this +searching light and heat. The faith of my childhood, in its simplest +elements, took firmer root as it found broader room to grow in. + +I had many peculiar experiences in my log-cabin school-teaching, which +was seldom more than three months in one place. Only once I found +myself among New England people, and there I remained a year or more, +fairly reveling in a return to the familiar, thrifty ways that seem to +me to shape a more comfortable style of living than any under the sun. +"Vine Lodge" (so we named the cottage for its embowering +honey-suckles), and its warm-hearted inmates, with my little white +schoolhouse under the oaks, make one of the brightest of my Western +memories. + +Only a mile or two away from this pretty retreat there was an edifice +towards which I often looked with longing. It was a seminary for young +women, probably at that time one of the best in the country, certainly +second to none in the West. It had originated about a dozen years +before, in a plan for Western collegiate education, organized by Yale +College graduates. It was thought that women as well as men ought to +share in the benefits of such a plan, and the result was Monticello +Seminary. The good man whose wealth had made the institution a +possibility lived in the neighborhood. Its trustees were of the best +type of pioneer manhood, and its pupils came from all parts of the +South and West. + +Its Principal--I wonder now that I could have lived so near her for a +year without becoming acquainted with her,--but her high local +reputation as an intellectual woman inspired me with awe, and I was +foolishly diffident. One day, however, upon the persuasion of my +friends at Vine Lodge, who knew my wishes for a higher education, I +went with them to call upon her. We talked about the matter which had +been in my thoughts so long, and she gave me not only a cordial but an +urgent invitation to come and enroll myself as a student. There were +arrangements for those who could not incur the current expenses, to +meet them by doing part of the domestic work, and of these I gladly +availed myself. The stately limestone edifice, standing in the midst of +an original growth of forest-trees, two or three miles from the +Mississippi River, became my home--my student-home--for three years. +The benefits of those three years I have been reaping ever since, I +trust not altogether selfishly. It was always my desire and my ambition +as a teacher, to help my pupils as my teachers had helped me. + +The course of study at Monticello Seminary was the broadest, the most +college-like, that I have ever known; and I have had experience since +in several institutions of the kind. The study of mediaeval and modern +history, and of the history of modern philosophy, especially, opened +new vistas to me. In these our Principal was also our teacher, and her +method was to show us the tendencies of thought, to put our minds into +the great current of human affairs, leaving us to collect details as we +could, then or afterward. We came thus to feel that these were +life-long studies, as indeed they are. + +The course was somewhat elective, but her advice to me was, not to omit +anything because I did not like it. I had a natural distaste for +mathematics, and my recollections of my struggles with trigonometry and +conic sections are not altogether those of a conquering heroine. But my +teacher told me that my mind had need of just that exact sort of +discipline, and I think she was right. + +A habit of indiscriminate, unsystematized reading, such as I had fallen +into, is entirely foreign to the scholarly habit of mind. Attention is +the secret of real acquirement; but it was months before I could +command my own attention, even when I was interested in the subject I +was examining. It seemed as if all the pages of all the books I had +ever read were turning themselves over between me and this one page +that I wanted to understand. I found that mere reading does not by any +means make a student. + +It was more to me to come into communication with my wise teacher as a +friend than even to receive the wisdom she had to impart. She was +dignified and reticent, but beneath her reserve, as is often the case, +was a sealed fountain of sympathy, which one who had the key could +easily unlock. Thinking of her nobleness of character, her piety, her +learning, her power, and her sweetness, it seems to me as if I had once +had a Christian Zenobia or Hypatia for my teacher. + +We speak with awed tenderness of our unseen guardian angels, but have +we not all had our guiding angels, who came to us in visible form, and, +recognized or unknown, kept beside us on our difficult path until they +had done for us all they could? It seems to me as if one had succeeded +another by my side all through the years,--always some one whose +influence made my heart stronger and my way clearer; though sometimes +it has been only a little child that came and laid its hand into my +hand as if I were its guide, instead of its being mine. + +My dear and honored Lady-Principal was surely one of my strong guiding +angels, sent to meet me as I went to meet her upon my life-road, just +at the point where I most needed her. For the one great thing she gave +her pupils,--scope, often quite left out of woman's education,--I +especially thank her. The true education is to go on forever. But how +can there be any hopeful going on without outlook? And having an +infinite outlook, how can progress ever cease? It was worth while for +me to go to those Western prairies, if only for the broader mental view +that opened upon me in my pupilage there. + +During my first year at the seminary I was appointed teacher of the +Preparatory Department,--a separate school of thirty or forty +girls,--with the opportunity to go on with my studies at the same time. +It was a little hard, but I was very glad to do it, as I was unwilling +to receive an education without rendering an equivalent, and I did not +wish to incur a debt. + +I believe that the postponement of these maturer studies to my early +womanhood, after I had worked and taught, was a benefit to me. I had +found out some of my special ignorances, what the things were which I +most needed to know. I had learned that the book-knowledge I so much +craved was not itself education, was not even culture, but only a help, +an adjunct to both. As I studied more earnestly, I cared for fewer +books, but those few made themselves indispensable. It still seems to +me that in the Lowell mills, and in my log-cabin schoolhouse on the +Western prairies, I received the best part of my early education. + +The great advantage of a seminary course to me was that under my +broad-minded Principal I learned what education really is: the +penetrating deeper and rising higher into life, as well as making +continually wider explorations; the rounding of the whole human being +out of its nebulous elements into form, as planets and suns are +rounded, until they give out safe and steady light. This makes the +process an infinite one, not possible to be completed at any school. + +Returning from the West immediately after my graduation, I was for ten +years or so a teacher of young girls in seminaries much like my own +Alma Mater. The best result to me of that experience has been the +friendship of my pupils,--a happiness which must last as long as life +itself. + +A book must end somewhere, and the natural boundary of this narrative +is drawn with my leaving New England for the West. I was to outline the +story of my youth for the young, though I think many a one among them +might tell a story far more interesting than mine. The most beautiful +lives seldom find their way into print. Perhaps the most beautiful part +of any life never does. I should like to flatter myself so. + +I could not stay at the West. It was never really home to me there, and +my sojourn of six or seven years on the prairies only deepened my love +and longing for the dear old State of Massachusetts. I came back in the +summer of 1852, and the unwritten remainder of my sketch is chiefly +that of a teacher's and writer's experience; regarding which latter I +will add, for the gratification of those who have desired them, a few +personal particulars. + +While a student and teacher at the West I was still writing, and much +that I wrote was published. A poem printed in "Sartain's Magazine," +sent there at the suggestion of the editor of the "Lowell Offering" was +the first for which I received remuneration--five dollars. Several +poems written for the manuscript school journal at Monticello Seminary +are in the "Household" collection of my verses, among them those +entitled "Eureka," "Hand in Hand with Angels," and "Psyche at School." +These, and various others written soon after, were printed in the +"National Era," in return for which a copy of the paper was sent me. +Nothing further was asked or expected. + +The little song "Hannah Binding Shoes"--written immediately after my +return from the West,--was a study from life--though not from any one +life--in my native town. It was brought into notice in a peculiar +way,--by my being accused of stealing it, by the editor of the magazine +to which I had sent it with a request for the usual remuneration, if +accepted. Accidentally or otherwise, this editor lost my note and +signature, and then denounced me by name in a newspaper as a "literary +thiefess;" having printed the verses with a nom de plume in his +magazine without my knowledge. It was awkward to have to come to my own +defense. But the curious incident gave the song a wide circulation. + +I did not attempt writing for money until it became a necessity, when +my health failed at teaching, although I should long before then have +liked to spend my whole time with my pen, could I have done so. But it +was imperative that I should have an assured income, however small; and +every one who has tried it knows how uncertain a support one's pen is, +unless it has become very famous indeed. My life as a teacher, however, +I regard as part of my best preparation for whatever I have since +written. I do not know but I should recommend five or ten years of +teaching as the most profitable apprenticeship for a young person who +wished to become an author. To be a good teacher implies +self-discipline, and a book written without something of that sort of +personal preparation cannot be a very valuable one. + +Success in writing may mean many different things. I do not know that I +have ever reached it, except in the sense of liking better and better +to write, and of finding expression easier. It is something to have won +the privilege of going on. Sympathy and recognition are worth a great +deal; the power to touch human beings inwardly and nobly is worth far +more. The hope of attaining to such results, if only occasionally, must +be a writer's best inspiration. + +So far as successful publication goes, perhaps the first I considered +so came when a poem of mine was accepted by the "Atlantic Monthly." Its +title was "The Rose Enthroned," and as the poet Lowell was at that time +editing the magazine I felt especially gratified. That and another +poem, "The Loyal Woman's No," written early in the War of the +Rebellion, were each attributed to a different person among our +prominent poets, the "Atlantic" at that time not giving authors' +signatures. Of course I knew the unlikeness; nevertheless, those who +made the mistake paid me an unintentional compliment. Compliments, +however, are very cheap, and by no means signify success. I have always +regarded it as a better ambition to be a true woman than to become a +successful writer. To be the second would never have seemed to me +desirable, without also being the first. + +In concluding, let me say to you, dear girls, for whom these pages have +been written, that if I have learned anything by living, it is +this,--that the meaning of life is education; not through +book-knowledge alone, sometimes entirely without it. Education is +growth, the development of our best possibilities from within outward; +and it cannot be carried on as it should be except in a school, just +such a school as we all find ourselves in--this world of human beings +by whom we are surrounded. The beauty of belonging to this school is +that we cannot learn anything in it by ourselves alone, but for and +with our fellow pupils, the wide earth over. We can never expect +promotion here, except by taking our place among the lowest, and +sharing their difficulties until they are removed, and we all become +graduates together for a higher school. + +Humility, Sympathy, Helpfulness, and Faith are the best teachers in +this great university, and none of us are well educated who do not +accept their training. The real satisfaction of living is, and must +forever be, the education of all for each, and of each for all. So let +us all try together to be good and faithful women, and not care too +much for what the world may think of us or of our abilities! + +My little story is not a remarkable one, for I have never attempted +remarkable things. In the words of one of our honored elder writers, +given in reply to a youthful aspirant who had asked for some points of +her "literary career,"--"I never had a career." + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A New England Girlhood, by Lucy Larcom + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD *** + +***** This file should be named 2293.txt or 2293.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/9/2293/ + +Produced by Susan L. Farley. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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